A friend of our space has been attacked by several perpetrators on the 11th of April 2015, around 1 a.m. in the morning. Our friend has a Turkish migratory background and got stabbed several times. He has been left critically injured in front of our house. Beforehand, three men offended visitors of our space with HoGeSa slogans. After the attack those men escaped. The attack shocked and embarrassed us.
We are speechless.
Our first concern is our critically injured friend.
He went into artificial coma with short interruptions and is under intensive medical care. His state is still critical.
Our thoughts are with you!
Through this statement we are sending you our best wishes and strength to the hospital.
Even the little aforementioned facts make clear that the attack has a significant political dimension, that we are going to point out in the following lines.
The Offenders
At least one of the strongly suspected perpetrators is a HoGeSa Nazi. Due to a suggestion of a pedestrian, and not through police investigation, the HoGeSa Nazi Patrick Petri has been picked up in the city center later that night and has been designated “to the political right scene” by the police.
Among others, he openly called online for participation at the racist Pegida-Demonstration at the 14th. of March in Wuppertal. A Facebook message from the 12th. of March 2015, posted by Mario Leisering from Oberhausen on the public page of “Die Rechte – Kreisverband Wuppertal”(a rightwing political party), indicates his participation in the attack and strong bounds to leaders of the HoGeSa-Nazis in NRW. Three persons has been detained since Monday the 20th of April 2014. According to the police they are the three main suspects.
Police Investigation
The left and antifascists are the bogeyman of the Wuppertal police. This becomes obvious in the actions and the behavior of the police at the evening of the attack:
– Shocked visitors of the AZ has been threatened with batons and peppers pray.
– The AZ has been raided by the police during the emergency care of the injured.
– Investigations and forensics at night and during the following morning has been concentrated solely on visitors and witnesses of the AZ.
– In order to “secure the crime scene” the police smashed and destroyed almost all doors of the AZ despite the offer to open all doors inside the house.
– Escape routes of the perpetrators haven’t been investigated.
– Witnesses and first-aiders has been partly hold into custody until next noon or has been arrested as suspects.
– A “blood smeared knife”, probably the weapon used during the attack, has been found by the police only on the following Monday.
Another indication are the public statements of the police. In its first press release, the police solely talked about a “dispute”. We learned about the false selection of words already during the attack of Nazis from Wuppertal against visitors of the flea-market in the Vohwinkel neighborhood and from the trans-regional Nazi attack on the presentation of the “Media Project Wuppertal” at the Cinemaxx.
Then and now, this diction deliberately suggests that this is a two-sided conflict between “right” and “left” instead of addressing the one sided intention of fascists to hurt and kill people. In the meantime the police narrates the story of its operation in different versions:
Its first press statement announced: “Upon arrival of the emergency team, rescuers and police got attacked by members of the left scene within the building and access to the building had been denied. Only by using batons and pepper spray, the police could rescue the injured person from within the building for further medical treatment.” (Press statement police Wuppertal, 11.04.2015 – 08:58h)
On the 11th of April, police speaker Anja Meis claimed at the local news program Lokalzeit: “there has been acts of resistance, thus we had to enter the building by using pepper spray and batons”. (Lokalzeit, 11.4.2015)
Two days later, at the same news program, Anja Meis narrates the story again slightly different: “The colleagues entered the building. There has been wranglings and shoving. In the meantime we had to leave again, to gather outside. But the injured person could be brought outside and was further medicated.” (Lokalzeit, 13.4.2015)
The varying narrations show clearly that the police deliberately distributed misinterpretations of facts, that has been picked up by the press without verification. The police intentionally and falsely incriminated AZ visitors and antifascists. By knowing that the cooked up story of the events of that night are probably not credible, the spokesperson of the police distributed new versions of the events of that night, the last one on the 13th. of April. Since then, the police remains silent. Even the arrest of the three suspects is not worth a public notice.
Why? What is the purpose?
We want to clarify: The seriously injured has been salvaged from the street in front of the house into a calm side corridor of the AZ. Visitors immediately conducted first aid and the emergency number of the rescue team has been called repeatedly and promptly. The emergency team arrived shortly afterwards and took over the professional first care. The personal safety of the emergency team has never been in danger and has never been threatened by visitors of our space. In the meantime, the police exacerbated the emergency situation through its inadequate behavior. Upon the arrival of reinforcement it threatened the shocked visitors with pepper spray and batons and stormed into the main entry of the house in order to reach the injured. Despite other police claims, no pepper spray and batons has been utilized, nobody has been injured by it. Despite the need of medication, the police withdrew the already active professional emergency team from the critical injured (who was ordering that?), only to let the medication resume shortly after with support of a doctor and to let the injured then to be brought into a hospital.
Regarding the suspect that has been picked up and labeled as related to the “right scene”, the police spoke about a stab wound in its first press release (police press release from 11.04.2015), which turned into a incised wound on the leg during the course of the following week. (Wuppertaler Rundschau 15.04.2015)
What should be suggested here? A typical reversal of perpetrator and victim? The state prosecutor Monika Olschak explains in the local news: “The crime scene [the AZ] induces that we investigate in this direction, but at this moment we do not have a solid base to suspect that the action is indeed of political nature or has a right background.” (Lokalzeit 13.04.2015)
Didn’t the prosecution already know at the moment about the HoGeSa-Nazi background of one of the suspects? This fact is deliberately kept back. Likewise, police and the prosecution keep back the fact that three suspects has been detained. Hence, it must be assumed that the public security authorities downplay, trivialize, relativise and ultimately negate the HoGeSa / Pegida-Nazi background of the attack. Fascist violence is not named.
The perpetrators have been purposely chosen the AZ. Since years the autonomous center is continuously organising and mobilising against racist conditions and Nazi activities of all types. Naturally we have been a fundamental part of the counter activities against the Pedida/HoGeSa/Nazi march scheduled for the 14th of March 2015 in Wuppertal. By the way, the empty AZ has been attacked with bottles by Pegida supporters at the very same evening. The defamatory and stigmatising thesis of the investigating authorities, that claim that the suspect has to be looked for in the milieu around the AZ, is mostly not questioned in the public.
Unfortunately large parts of the press have been supporting the one-sided and dangerous game of the authorities so far, by deliberately and/or mindlessly copying police press statements in their own articles. Eventually, we need critical journalism in this city, that reports independently and that is not impressed by police statements.
Current political assessment
It’s a new and deeply concerning development that Nazi-hooligans and fascist thugs. that adopted the “Hooligan” label, are acting increasingly more violent and racist. They are part of a diverse racist movement, that conducted several larger and smaller marches all over the country during the last month, where they could spread their baiting blatantly. They also appear through attacks and arson against refugee shelters and brutal physical attacks against dissidents and people with different live styles. Targeted are various groups, especially refugees and migrants, Muslims, but also all active antifascists that fight against their inhuman baiting.
The thread has to be faced collectively and in solidarity!
It has to be adhered that investigations and press work of Wuppertal police sticks out again exceedingly negative in the already truculent handling of victims and witnesses of Nazi violence by security authorities. We can expose the outrageous and lousy work of the Wuppertal police and the prosecution in several examples (for reference see also the press releases of Opferberatung Rheinland). Those examples make clear, that among others, respective moves of security authorities are not necessarily caused only by individual failures and the political mindset of officers, but are immanent to the system, structurally and institutional.
Our city is not an isolated case concerning that assessment. The investigations into the killings of the NSU (National Socialist Underground) and the nail-bomb attacks at Keupstr. in Cologne have to be given as devastating and dreadful examples. The proceedings or non/false-proceedings after acts of violence with right and inhumane and/or racists political background is still deeply embedded in the structures of ‘security’ authorities, even though this is being denied since the self-exposure of the NSU in 2011.
The Amadeu Antonio Foundation released two brochures that inform about those structures:
– Staatsversagen. Wie Engagierte gegen Rechtsextremismus im Stich gelassen werden. Eine Reportage aus Westdeutschland (its cover shows the suspension monorail in Wuppertal; the fascist attack against the movie screening of the media project Wuppertal and the scandalous administrative reappraisal are main themes)
By suppressing and not naming the political motives of racism and human contempt, as well as the culture of tolerating and turning the blind eye on, the dimensions of right violence are downplayed which leads to a further strengthening of racist and inhumane movements of all kinds.
However, we will defy and withstand this.
¡No pasarán!
Faşizme Karşı Omuz Omuza!
Autonomes Zentrum Wuppertal, 24.04.2015
Please do not spread rumor and speculation on social media and elsewhere in order to protect those affected.
Translated by s!n
Slightly abridged version from http://www.az-wuppertal.de/2015/04/24/eine-zweite-erklarung
More Information
AZ website: http://www.az-wuppertal.de/
Current solidarity statements: http://www.az-wuppertal.de/2015/05/04/danke/