with Jorinde Schulz and Ferat Kocak

The rerun Berlin elections will take place on 12^th February. Some Berliners will vote for a new parliament which will take decisions on whether to make Berlin climate neutral, whether an intimidating police station is built at Kotbusser Tor and whether the decision of the referendum to expropriate the big landlords will finally be implemented.

But many Berliners will be excluded from this vote. 1.3 million Berliners – over one third of the population – are not allowed to vote, nearly 800,000 because they do not have a German passport. 16 and 17 year olds are also excluded as are those with a criminal record and people who are new in Berlin. And yet all of us will be affected by the new government.

Die LINKE Neukölln and Die LINKE Berlin Internationals are organising a meeting on 8th February with the title Voting Rights and Political Participation. LINKE election candidates Jorinde Schulz and Ferat Kocak will be talking about what we can expect from the next Senat, how non-Germans face systematic discrimination, and what we can do to change this.

The meeting will be in English and takes place in Linx*44, Schierker Straße 26 (U- and S-Bahn Hermannstraße). It starts at 7pm. Everyone is invited to join the discussion.

Jorinde Schulz has been active in anti-privatisation and anti-racist struggles in Berlin and beyond. She also fights for a mobility politics which concentrates neither on building more motorways, nor sells public space as a business opportunity for supposedly climate-friendly e-car-companies, but instead aims at good, publicly owned transportation infrastructures that cover the entire city with low ticket prices.

Ferat Kocak is the speaker for die LINKE Senat fraction for anti-fascist and environmental politics. He is an anti-racist and anti-fascist activist who campaigns against police repression and racism. Ferat is active on social media as Der Neuköllner.