NEWS FROM BERLIN

Berlin’s state-owned companies raise rents for more than 90,000 flats

Tens of thousands of tenants in Berlin are facing rising housing costs at the turn of the year. The state-owned housing associations want to increase the rent on a total of more than 90,000 flats. This was announced by the State Secretary for Housing, Stephan Machulik (SPD) who said that rents will rise for 20,000 Degewo flats, 27,900 Howoge flats, 12,500 Gesobau flats and 10,200 WBM flats. Machulik explained it is not yet clear exactly how many tenants will be affected by the increase. On average, rents are set to increase by between 7.9 and 9%. Source: tagesspiegel

Indefinite daycare strike in Berlin remains banned

A major defeat for ver.di at the state labour court: the indefinite strike planned by trade unions in Berlin for better working conditions for employees at daycare centres remains unlawful. This was decided by the Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Labour Court, confirming a decision by the lower court. The court considered that an indefinite strike would be a violation of the applicable so-called peace obligation once negotiations with the Tarifgemeinschaft deutscher Länder (TdL) in December 2023 had already discussed regulations to relieve the burden on nursery teachers. The union is conducting joint collective bargaining for all federal states except Hesse. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Scholz announces further arms exports to Israel

According to the Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Germany will go on supplying Israel with weapons. The announcement was made during the Bundestag debate on the occasion of the anniversary of the attack on Israel by Islamist Hamas on 7 October 2023. Beforehand, representatives of the CDU/CSU parties had accused the traffic-light coalition (SPD – FDP – Greens) of failing to support Israel, explicitly referring to arms deliveries. Party leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) also said that export licences, for example for ammunition and even the delivery of spare parts for tanks, had been refused for weeks. Source: deutschlandfunk

Shouts of ‘Foreigners out!’ at a major techno event in Würzburg

Once again, the Gigi D’Agostino classic ‘L’amour tojours’ was misused for racist slogans – this time at the ‘Power of Techno’ event at the Posthalle in Würzburg, where DJ Peacock was playing. The song had been played out for just 20 seconds from the speakers, but it was enough time for some people to start screaming ‘Foreigners out!’. According to the organisers of ‘Power of Techno’, the incident only came to their attention afterwards. ‘If we had known, we would have taken immediate action and expelled the people from the hall,’ the organisers told the Main Post. Source: fazemag

Police secretly change press release to disperse protest

The police defended their actions against the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg attending a pro-Palestinian protest camp in Dortmund University. Police forces had banned and dispersed the camp on last Tuesday evening shortly before Thunberg’s planned visit. Dortmund police chief Gregor Lange emphasised that there had been a concrete danger of anti-Semitic crimes. Thunberg was described as a ‘person prepared to use violence’ in an initial police statement on her deployment. The police subsequently described this as an ‘internal error’. Greta Thunberg then accused the German authorities of threatening activists and silencing them. ‘We will not be silenced,’ she concluded. Source: n-tv

‘I don’t want to be a fig leaf’

In an interview, Green member of the Bundestag for Kreuzberg Canan Bayram said she is not running for again. She writes in taz that the party is no longer as well connected as it used to be, specifically citing the days of Hans-Christian Ströbele, a green party founder. Bayram also states she can no longer ‘promise people with a migration background that they can come with their problems and find a non-discriminatory space’. What she points out as particularly problematic is that ‘the Greens once were orientated towards evidence-based substantive solutions in policy areas’, and now it seems to her ‘we are much more involved in populist discourse instead of discussing actual solutions’. Source: taz

Ex-Stasi officer sentenced to ten years in prison

A former Stasi officer, now 80 years old, is accused of shooting a man at a GDR border crossing half a century ago. The Berlin district court has now sentenced him to ten years in prison for murder. This is the first murder conviction against a former Stasi employee. The public prosecutor’s office had previously demanded twelve years in prison. The Brandenburg Commissioner for Dealing with the Consequences of the Communist Dictatorship, Maria Nooke, welcomed the judgement. The trial demonstrates the importance of the legal and social reappraisal of GDR injustice right up to the present day. Source: rbb

Germany makes a move to protect top court against the far right

Many authoritarian governments are trying to curb the clout of their countries’ supreme courts. As far-right populists gain ground in Germany, the government is also working to protect this “bastion of democracy”. A draft law drawn up by the current coalition German government, together with the opposition conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was debated in the German parliament this week, aimed at enshrining certain features of the Constitutional Court in the German constitution, the Basic Law, making them harder to change. Only the AfD voiced any opposition to the proposal. Source: dw

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Demo in Kreuzberg ends ahead of time

Hundreds of police officers accompanied demonstrations in Berlin on Sunday. A pro-Palestinian demonstration ended prematurely in the evening. The march, with around 3,500 participants, started in the afternoon at Kottbusser Tor and was originally supposed to head to Sonnenallee. However, the police refused access to the street due to concerns about rioting. The rally was ended at 6.18 pm because of“unruliness,” according to the police. Several people were arrested in an atmosphere described as “emotional.” In Mitte, many came together to grieve for the victims of 7 October: around 500 people demanded the release of the Israeli hostages. The demonstration via Unter den Linden ended in the afternoon without incident. Source: rbb24

Greta Thunberg at October 7 demonstration

A demo on Monday also ended as feared: scuffles with the police, arrests, bottles thrown and people injured. Around 400 people gathered at Südstern in Berlin on the evening of October 7 to officially demonstrate in “Solidarity with Palestine.” The demonstration, which took place on the first anniversary of the Hamas massacres in Israel, was advertised under the slogan “Glory to the resistance.” The most prominent participant was climate movement icon Greta Thunberg. The demonstration was called by the Trotskyist group Arbeiterinnenmacht as well as the Communist Organisation, the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists, Palestine Speaks, and Jewish Voices for a Just Peace in the Middle East, among others. Source: taz

Prosecution in Berlin seeks 12 years in Stasi murder trial

An 80-year-old from Leipzig who worked for East Germany’s secret police, Stasi, is accused of murdering a Polish man, Czesław Kukuczka, who was trying to flee west in 1974. Prosecutors called for a 12-year sentence in closing arguments. At the Polish Embassy in East Berlin, Kukuczka had threatened to be carrying a bomb, which it later transpired was a bluff. He was trying to flee to join relatives in the US. The trial only became possible with the emergence of new evidence. Prosecutors say information found by historians in the Stasi archives in 2016 first linked the defendant to the killing. A verdict is expected on October 14. Source: dw

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Federal government anticipates recession in Germany

The German government has revised its economic forecast downwards and now expects 2024 to be the second year of recession in a row. The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens) now assumes that the economy will shrink by 0.2% this year, as reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Leading research institutes have already lowered their forecast for the German economy this year. In a recently published autumn report for the government, economists assume that GDP will fall by 0.1% in 2024, marking the second consecutive year of contraction. The official announcement of the current estimate is planned for next Wednesday. Source: tagesschau

“Key figure” in Cologne explosions arrested

Investigators believe that an arrested 22-year-old is a “key figure” in a suspected drug deal that was behind the series of explosions that have rocked Cologne and other places in recent months. The suspect was picked up at the Roissy Airport in Paris. The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne has initiated extradition proceedings and is in close contact with the French judicial authorities. The theft of a large quantity of cannabis from a warehouse in Hürth is believed to have triggered a spiral of violence in Cologne and several other places. Source: dw

FDP wants hardship for migrants

The FDP wants to push through a tougher course on migration policy. According to information from the German Press Agency, the parliamentary group’s executive committee decided on a nine-point paper. “There is now an opportunity for tangible changes in migration policy,” says the FDP paper. The nine-point paper specifically calls for an examination of “safe countries of origin,” which means that asylum applications from people from such countries can be rejected more easily than others. Coalition partner SPD reacted sceptically. The ongoing talks on the so-called security package must wait, said deputy parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese to Die Welt. Source: taz

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Raid on pro-Palestinian scene

Berlin police searched the homes of five men last Monday morning. The men are suspected of having made pro-Palestinian offences, police and the public prosecutor’s office announced that. A total of 125 officers executed five search warrants in the districts of Friedrichshain, Britz, Gropiusstadt, Tegel and Schöneberg on behalf of the Berlin public prosecutor’s office. Mobile phones, computers and other data carriers were seized during the searches and are now being analysed. No arrests were made. The Berlin police were also deployed on Monday due to a pro-Palestinian blockade. According to the police, around 20 people blocked the entrances to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Source: tagesschau

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Green Party leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour resign

The Greens have suffered heavy defeats in the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. As a consequence, the party leadership has now decided to resign. ‘New faces are needed to lead the party out of the crisis,’ says Ricarda Lang. She still added, ‘Now is not the time to stick to your own chair, now is the time to take responsibility’. Until the party conference in Wiesbaden in mid-November, Nouripour and she would continue to run the business. The decision had not been easy. ‘It was a great honour to serve this party.’ Source: die Welt

BSW co-chair advocates a new approach to the AfD

The co-chair of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), Amira Mohamed Ali, has once again ruled out a coalition between her party and the AfD. At the same time, however, she reiterated her call for a different approach to the AfD. The BSW has always clearly stated that a coalition with the AfD is out of the question because this party is, at least in part, right-wing extremist. ‘But we have also always said that we want a different approach to the AfD than the other parties have taken over the past ten years or so,’ added Ali. Source: Spiegel

No more German passports because of the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’?

The Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) sees the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ as a possible reason for exclusion from acquiring the German citizenship. This emerges from the BMI’s ‘provisional application notes’ on the new Citizenship Act. The new law, which came into force on 27 June 2024, is intended to enable well-integrated people to naturalise more quickly – after five years instead of the previous eight. The slogan makes reference to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which includes Israel and the Palestinian territories. Source: islamiq

‘I feel betrayed by both countries’

David Macou was 19 years old when he came to the GDR as a contract labourer from Mozambique in 1979. The promise: vocational training and money with which he could build a future back in his country. However, what he and others on the same situation didn’t know was that they were just puppets in an intergovernmental horse-trading deal between the GDR and Mozambique. There was hardly any contact with the local population. They encountered prejudice everywhere. David felt cheated by both countries: by the GDR, which withheld his wages, and by Mozambique, which had barely passed the money from Germany on to the contract workers. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Berlin Anmeldung available online from mid-October

Newcomers to Berlin will be able to complete their Anmeldung (registration) online from mid-October 2024, receiving their documents by post. It means a Bürgeramt appointment will no longer be necessary. An Anmeldung within 14 days of arrival is mandatory for everyone who moves to a German city. The bureaucratic shortcoming creates a particularly large hurdle for newcomers since everyone in Germany needs to show their Anmeldung certificate for all kinds of administrative tasks, such as applying for a residence permit, opening a bank account or finding a job. However, even if the registration is about to become easier, finding an address in the German capital is still hard Source: iamexpat

Assassinated, just like that

On the afternoon of 11 July, a stranger stabbed William Chedjou in the stomach. In broad daylight and the middle of the street, at Gesundbrunnen in Wedding. Chedjou died of his injuries shortly afterwards. The police report of 12 July speaks of a “homicide.” What it doesn’t mention is that Chedjou was black and came from Cameroon. The alleged perpetrator is a German with a Turkish migration background. And the “dispute” was more of a sudden escalation. At least that’s what Cyrille Tasah Fotio, an eyewitness and victim of the attack, says. He and many other Cameroonians in Berlin agree: Chedjou died because of racism. Source: taz

Ari comfort woman statue to stay in Mitte

The dispute over the Ari comfort women statue in Berlin continues. The Berlin-Mitte District Assembly has approved a petition in favour of its preservation. A similar motion, initiated by the Greens, SPD and Die Linke, was also approved. The statue in Berlin’s Mitte district was erected as a peace statue in September 2020 by a pro-South Korean civic group after local authorities approved its installation for one year. The permit was then extended for a further year. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) also intervened and withdrew funding for an educational project on the topic of “comfort women.” Research by rbb showed that Wegner was doing Japan’s bidding. Source: sumikai

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Balcony solar panel boom goes on

2024 has so far been the year of balcony solar panels in Germany. The increase in solar panel numbers has to do with the Germany’s new Solar Package I policy, which came into effect in January 2024. In the second quarter alone, 152,000 more units were installed, according to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur). Bonn residents installed the largest number of units in the second quarter, with 5.16 new units for every 1,000 people. Dresden followed with 4.10 units, Essen with 3.37 and Leipzig with 2.94. Source: iamexpat

Student rooms only for heirs

At the start of the winter semester, a survey was once again carried out to find out how much rooms in shared flats cost in German university cities. The unsurprising result: without rich parents, you can forget Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. A room in a shared flat in these cities costs around 600 euros on average. The analysis of more than 9,000 offers for shared flats showed that rooms are more expensive almost everywhere than they were a year ago. The cheaper ones are in the east: in Chemnitz, for instance, a room can be rented for an average cost of 290 euros. Source: jW

Brandenburg elections bring some relief for SPD

The SPD’s Dietmar Woidke has been Minister President in Brandenburg for 11 years, where he is much more popular than SPD leaders at the national level. That could be an explanation for the party’s victory in the Brandenburg regional election, where, for the third regional election within three weeks, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was nevertheless able to record massive gains, becoming the strongest political force in eastern Germany. For the left-wing environmentalist Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), who form the federal coalition government in Berlin together with the Social Democrats (SPD), it was their third crushing defeat in a row. Source: dw

Deutschlandticket will soon cost 58 euros

A price increase is never a nice thing, affirmed North Rhine-Westphalia’s Transport Minister Oliver Krischer (Greens). The “Deutschlandticket” will cost 9 euros more from 1 January 2025, making it 58 euros per month. Nevertheless, it is good news for local transport and passengers in Germany, Krischer insisted. The new price is valid for the whole of 2025. The future of the ticket is therefore secured and another price debate is off the table for the time being. However, studies commissioned by the federal and state governments have shown that some of the approximately 13 million customers are unlikely to go along with the price increase. Source: taz

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Berlin must pay back to climate activists

The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin has confirmed that the Berlin police unlawfully charged climate activists. The court rejected an appeal by the state of Berlin against a previous judgement from September 2023, which concerned a specific case involving a climate activist and this decision is final. According to the Berlin Senate’s internal administration, the Berlin police had sent more than a thousand charge notices, each of them of 241 euros to climate activists for obstructing traffic by gluing themselves to the road. Many of these 1,300 notices could now be unlawful. That would comprise an amount of 313,300 euros. Source: welt

BVG: every 15th trip cancelled

Frequent technical problems, an outdated fleet of vehicles, and a lack of clarity over when any of these issues will be resolved: the boss of Berliner Verkhrsbetriebe (BVG) has admitted that a number of serious problems have led to the reliability of the Berlin U-Bahn network to decrease rapidly this year. ‘None of us are happy about it,’ CEO Henrik Falk told the RBB evening show. ‘New vehicles will arrive next year. I can’t say exactly when,’ he added. According to current figures, the reliability of the U-Bahn network dropped to 93 percent in August, meaning that almost every 15th trip was cancelled. Source: the berliner

Watergate to close at the end of the year

The Berlin club Watergate on Oberbaumbrücke has been around for 22 years. But it’s coming to an end at the end of 2024. The club operators will not be renewing their lease for economic reasons, citing rising energy and rental costs, among other things: ‘From an economic point of view and an honest assessment of the current situation for clubs in Berlin, this is the only sensible and responsible decision for us.’ The club scene is fighting for survival, the statement continued. After Corona, the business had not regained the speed of previous years. Many clubs in Berlin have had to close in recent years. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Germany extends stricter land border controls

Germany has announced it will extend tight controls on the country’s land borders for another six months. From September 16, 2024, German police will impose more regular border checks on cars, buses and trains between the federal republic, Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Other neighboring countries are already the subject of regular checks: Austria (since 2015) and Poland, Czechia and Switzerland (since 2023). German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser (SPD), has said that the country will continue imposing the border checks to “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime”. Since Germany is in the Schengen Area, checks must be temporary. Source: i am expat

Precarious pride: a summer of right-wing violence at queer demonstrations

During the summer there were numerous Pride events, from parties and festivals to demonstrations, however, they weren’t all a “bag of rainbows”. In Bautzen, Saxony, the unthinkable happened: at the city’s second-ever CSD on August 10th, queers were greeted by 700 neo-Nazis from all over Germany holding a ‘counter-demo’. On August 17, neo-Nazis held another counter-demo during the Leipzig CSD. Meanwhile, during both the Dyke March Berlin on July 26 and the Internationalist Queer Pride on July 27, there are many images of police infiltrating the demos and grabbing, hitting and manhandling queers protesting the genocide in Gaza. Source: the berliner

Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior bans Islamic centre in Fürstenwalde

Brandenburg’s Interior Minister, Michael Stübgen (CDU), has shut down the Islamic Centre Fürstenwalde al-Salam (IZF). Police carried out searches at the centre’s premises earlier this month. ‘The association is closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organisation Hamas,’ said Stübgen, explaining the move. ‘Our Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been monitoring this organisation for several years,’ he added. The mosque, a part of the center, is a meeting point for many Muslims to practise their faith, and evidently not all those who went to this mosque followed extremist endeavours. Source: rbb