AUT: Fw: (en) Police Raid Leftist Center 'Mehringhof' In Berlin (houses

[Michael Pugliese <debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: wah <wah@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <a-infos-en@xxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 27, 1999 4:59 AM
Subject: (en) Police Raid Leftist Center 'Mehringhof' In Berlin - follow up
andbackground


> ________________________________________________
>       A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
>             http://www.ainfos.ca/
>  ________________________________________________
>
> > From: Arm The Spirit <ats@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> [The "Mehringhof" center in West Berlin, once a squatted complex but now a
> collectively owned project, has been home to scores of political projects
> and initiatives ranging from alternative and ecological collectives,
> Turkish and Kurdish leftist organizations, and autonomist and antifa
groups
> for well over a decade. Despite a marked decline in the strength of the
> extra-parliamentary left in Berlin over the past few years, police
> repression against the (autonomist) left has never lessened. First the
wave
> of repression against the autonomist periodical "Interim", then the
> elimination of the remnants of the squatters movement, now the recent
> anti-terrorist police raids on the Mehringhof can be seen as part of the
> "green-left" German government's determination to cleanse the new capital
> city of all forms of fundamental opposition. Updates on this repression
can
> be found (in German) at http://www.linkeseite.de/mehringhof.htm. We will
> make English updates available on the Web as soon as possible. Solidarity
> is a weapon! - Arm The Spirit]
>
> "Terrorist Hunt" In Berlin, Mehringhof;
> Police And GSG-9 Search For Weapons And Explosives In Project Center
>
> Within a few minutes of 6:00am on Sunday morning, the Gneisenaustrasse in
> Berlin's Kreuzberg district was filled with police vehicles. Around a
> thousand cops, many masked, including members of the GSG-9 anti-terrorist
> police, staged a surprise raid on the Mehringhof complex on Sunday
morning.
> The aim of the action was to search for a weapons depot.
>
> According to the federal prosecutor's office (BAW) in Karlsruhe, the
> officers were searching the rooms of the alternative project to look for
> weapons and explosives belonging to the organization Rote
> Zora/Revolutionary Cells (RZ). The row of parked police vehicles stretched
> a kilometer and a half down the street Gneisenaustrasse. But by the time
> the raid ended in the afternoon, nothing had been found. A few dozen
people
> who were still in the Mehringhof at the time of the raid, having attended
a
> salsa party the previous night, were only allowed to leave following ID
> checks at 11:00am. Journalists and photographers were denied entry to the
> complex, and surrounding buildings were occupied by police as well.
>
> While the raid was still underway, a spontaneous demonstration was held.
> About 150 people took part in the demo, which was roughly treated by the
> police.
>
> The police action at 6:00am was preceded by the arrest of two men in
Berlin
> aged 49 and 51. At the same time, a 53-year-old woman was arrested in
> Frankfurt on charges of membership in a terrorist organization. One man
and
> the woman are alleged to have participated in a 1987 bombing on a
> government office in charge of asylum policy in West Berlin. The woman
> arrested in Frankfurt is a close friend of Rudolf Gunter Schindler, who
was
> arrested in Frankfurt a few weeks ago. Also, the accused are said to have
> taken part in another attack in 1987 on the head judge of the federal
court
> in Berlin, Gunter Korbmacher, who was shot in the lower legs. The woman is
> also alleged to have taken part in an attack the year before on the chief
> of the foreigners division of the police bureaucracy in West Berlin,
Harald
> Hollenberg.
>
> In addition to the rooms of the alternative cultural center Mehringhof in
> Berlin-Kreuzberg, the police raid also searched cable and electrical
ducts,
> because investigators had received a tip that the Revolutionary Cells/Rote
> Zora had built a weapons and explosives depot there. Unidentified members
> of the organization are said to have stolen more than 100kg of explosives
> in 1987, which was used in various actions, including the 1991 bombing of
> the 'Siegessaeule' statue pillar. The majority of the explosives have
never
> been recovered, however.
>
> During the police raid, mention was made of the arrest orders against
> Rudolf Gunter Schindler, who has already been charged in Frankfurt with
> participating in the 1975 attack on the OPEC summit in Vienna. He was
> implicated by statements made to prosecutors by Hans-Joachim Klein - a
> former friend of Germany's green foreign minister Joseph Fischer. The
> police raid seems to have turned up nothing, other than a 1986 phone list
> which included the name of Otto Schily, now Germany's interior minister.
> Volunteers at the Mehringhof complex estimate the damage caused by the
> police raid to be over 100,000 DM. The BAW has said further arrests will
> follow.
>
> (Source: junge Welt - December 20, 1999; Translated by Arm The Spirit)
>
> Freedom For Sabine, Axel, And Harald!
>
> On Sunday, December 19, 1999, at 6:00am, around 1000 police, masked GSG-9
> cops, BKA-BGS-BAW agents, and local Berlin pigs raided the Mehringhof in
> Berlin-Kreuzberg. At the same time, Harald and Axel, two volunteers from
> the Mehringhof, were arrested in Berlin, and Sabine was arrested at her
> home in Frankfurt. All three are being charged with membership in a
> "terrorist association", the Revolutionary Cells (RZ). One is charged with
> storing and maintaining weapons and explosives in the Mehringhof complex.
> During the raid on the Mehringhof, about 20 people who had been at a party
> there the night before were detained for 5-6 hours, during which time they
> could not use the phone or the toilets or drink water. Three of these
> people may have been arrested, and one person is now in deportation
> custody. It was three hours before tenants of the complex could enter. In
> the meantime, all locks had been broken open and the entire city block was
> sealed off. The cops searched all the rooms in the complex, checked the
> computers, confiscated papers, tore up the floors, and drilled holes in
the
> walls in an effort to find explosives.
>
> And what did they find? Nothing!
>
> In the meantime, Sabine, Axel, and Harald were carted off to Karlsruhe,
and
> then to jail cells in Wuppertal, Dusseldorf, and Cologne. Outside the
> Mehringhof, police provoked and attacked protestors, and arrested two
> people, who have since been released.
>
> Sabine, Axel, And Harald Must Be Set Free Immediately!
> Freedom For All Political Prisoners Worldwide!
> Against The Criminalization Of Leftist Projects!
> Death To State Terrorism!
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> (Source: Berlin autonomists; Translated by Arm The Spirit)
> Arm The Spirit
> P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A Toronto, Ontario M5W 1P7 Canada
> E-mail: ats@xxxxxxxxx
> WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/
> ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/ats-l
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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