Solidarity with the political prisoners in Turkey! Benefit voku

Monday February 1st 2016, Solidarity with the political prisoners in Turkey! Benefit voku. Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm.

More than 10.000 political prisoners are behind bars in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan. Most of them are PKK prisoners. The others are those who are claimed to be related with revolutionary parties like MLKP, TKP/ML, DHKP/C and MKP. A tiny minority is accused with commitment to other organisations.

Daily misery in Turkish prisons

The fact that all the torture and murder related cases filed against prison administrations end in favour of the same. Arbitrary prohibition of visiters, letters and publications. Isolation terror, physical violence, frequent violation of various rights, Violation through many different methods against the right to use other languages than Turkish in speaking communication and writing. Prevention of watching the legal progressive TV channels. Arbitrary implementations to hinder medical treatment. Hindering the prisoners to send their scientific and literary productions to publishers. Bad conditions of heating, nutrition. Expensiveness of the vital needs which are only allowed to be bought from the prison canteens. The transport difficulties of families to visit their relatives in prison. Most of the prisoners are put in prisons in the cities away from their family houses. […Lees verder]

ICAD Benefit

ICADThursday September 24th 2015, Benefiet voor het werk van ICAD (Internationaal Comite Tegen Verdwijningen), afdeling Nederland. Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm

De opbrengst van de maaltijden is bestemd voor de organisatie van acties en uitgifte van publicaties door ICAD.
Deze avond worden Koerdische maaltijden bereid: groentesoep, witte bonen met rijst (kurufasulye|) en salade. […Lees verder]

Benefit voku for Kobani II

20150126_Benefit_voku_for_Kobani_IIMonday January 26th 2015, Benefit voku for Kobani II, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm

Dear friends, on Monday 26th of January, voku benefit, informative gathering about Kobani. As many of you may know, Kobani (in Syrian Kurdistan) is sieged by ISIS dijhadistes but the Kurds are defending the city in spite of all kind of shortages. The main population of Kobani left the city and is now living in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. Circumstances in which these people are living are urgent and the winter makes in worse. Come along to have some food and information.

Volkseten Vegazulu is a people’s kitchen, every monday and thursday, 19:00 PM, vegan food for 4€ or donation. All benefits go for social & political struggles. No reservation. […Lees verder]

Kobanê is not alone! Solidarity dinner

Thursday November 20th 2014: Kobanê is not alone! Solidarity dinner. Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm.

On September 16, 2014, the Kurdish-dominated, Syrian town of Kobanê was attacked by ISIS. After weeks of fierce resistance, the Kurdish fighters of the YPG/YPJ (People’s/Women’s Defence Forces) continued to hold major parts of the city, while the advance of ISIS finally appeared to have been stopped. During their advance however, ISIS forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes, pushing them across the border into the South of Turkey. Often they could leave with little more than what they could carry with their own hands and they now have to live under poor conditions in refugee camps. Your donations, in return for a delicious meal, will go directly to the refugees in Suruç, the Turkish border town, where tens of thousands of Syrians have found shelter and are in dire need of simply everything. Thank you for your solidarity! […Lees verder]

ICAD Benefit

Thursday October 30th 2014, ICAD Benefit, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm

Disappearances, a method of state terror. Disappearances are practices of state terror. Specially in countries where exists a big differance between the rich and the poor. There where people resists in an organized way they have to do with all kinds of repression, so as disappearances. More than one million people has been disappeared since the end of the Second World War.

People who are political active, just like cadres of trade unions and farmer organizations, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists are potential victims. Paramilitary gangs and death squads let disappear those people. They can work under the protection of the state apparatus. Countries where “disappearances” are still practice are for example Irak, Syria, Afghanistan, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Kurdistan, Mexico, Central African Republic, Sudan, Congo. There where exists repression, there will be arise resistance. To let disappear is a manner of state terror to paralize social protest aigainst oppression and exploitation. […Lees verder]

Movie night: Ekümenopolis – city without limits (Turkey, 2011)

Sunday October 12th 2014, Ekümenopolis – city without limits. Directed by Imre Azem 2011, 93 minutes, in Turkish with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Eukemonopolis is documentation about neo liberal city development in Istanbul and the aspiration of its political leaders of turning it into a global city, one of those cities like London, Tokyo, Amsterdam or São Paulo, that shape globalisation and form the network of global cities where the service, banking and real estate businesses accumulate, where mega events takes place and a hegemonial hipster culture is cultivated. While the global alpha, beta and gamma cities posses the intellectual knowledge, tools and power the global division of labour is further extended, with the majority of factory production being outsourced to those parts of the world where people earn a shit for their 60 hours working week, have no labour rights whatsoever and endanger their health and well being by working in super precarious conditions, let alone the environmental destruction that this system of global division of labour provokes. Eukomonopolis shows quite in detail what the negative effects of repressive neo liberal urban development in Istanbul mean to local citizens and to the city’s natural environment while it also explains concepts like the global city (which was developed by Saskia Sassen) so that we can look at our own living environment and have more tools at hand to better understand what happens around us and affects us. We can develop strategies and actions to be solidare with the exploited people worldwide and get active locally in order to develop and realise our own strategies in contrast to that what is opposed on us by the state and its institutions, urban planners and the capitalistic system.

As further background  we want to provide a text about urban development in the city which is part of more a comprehensive report about squatting in the Istanbul and a collection of reports about radical grassroots neighborhood and factory organisation provided by the the solidarity campaign for left neighborhoods in Istanbul, translated from german to english. Even though the documentary does not relate those particular stories, those texts may shed some light on local resistance against the urban development that takes place in the city.

[…Lees verder]

ICAD Benefit

Thursday January 23rd 2014, ICAD Benefit, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm

ICAD, International Committee Against Disappearances, has established in Istanbul in 1996. Direct reason was the disappearance of Hasan Ocak, a Turkish activist, in march 1995. Two months later his body was found. To let disappear is a manner of state terror to paralyse social protest
against oppression and exploitation. Family, friends, political co-activists don’t know if their beloved ones are still alive. Not only political murders, tortures, extra-juridical killings, secret detention centres is a manner of state terror but also “disappearances”. […Lees verder]

Uprisings in Turkey, Info night & Benefit

Monday July 8th 2013, Uprisings in Turkey, Info night & Benefit, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm.
Taksim Everywhere, Resistance Everywhere. Info night about the uprisings in Turkey. Who is raising the flag, which flag, these days in Turkey? What has changed after recent uprisings all around Turkey? Video activists from Global Uprisings recently returning from Istanbul will present and discuss the current situation. Money raised with this benefit will go to juridical expenses for our comrades in Turkey. […Lees verder]