In prehistoric times our ancestors would live in caves, would paint colorful pictures on their walls or carve them onto rocks. Even later in Egypt, slaves, forced to build the pyramids used to scratch onto pieces of stones cartoons of pharaohs, or other despised rulers. In Ancient Greece the tempels would be carved with all kinds of visitors’ messages. Also the streets of Pompeii were full of graffiti. Graffiti isn’t anything of a new invention. It is one kind of human expression, an urge to frame and picture our environment, to leave signs of our existance behind us. Who among all of those ‘decent and civilized anti-graffiti people’ would ever dare to accuse our prehistoric or ancient ancestors as criminals for doing so? Non of them. Until the first greedy and power hungry human being invented something called: property and laws to enslave his fellow men. Until then the world used to belong to itself and man was able to roam it, settle down and design it freely.
Nowadays our painting and carving ancestors would be prosecuted by state authorities, defamed as vandals and criminals! Special police units would hunt them down, judges in courts would be busy to convict them “in the name of the people”, even to imprison them. Anti-Graffiti companies would be employed to erase every single sign of their expressions. So called ‘citizens initiatives’, politicians and self-claimed ‘property owners’ would publicly condemn them as ‘vandals’ and so on. That is the certain ‘human condition’ we are facing. The matter is not whether it is legal by any state laws to paint and write in your environment, but that it is an inherited human urge, which they’d love to make us believe of as a kind of cancer that must be cut out of the society, to prevent it from spreading. But the creation of things, be it in public or private, be it painting, writing, building etc. is almost as necessary for our well-being as eating. It is our spiritual food. Particularly in urban metropolis which haven’t been architectured to benefit most of their residents, where masses of people (among them countless kids and youngsters) are forced to live in ‘workers’ lockboxes’ within liveless and sterile surroundings made of cement, deprived of nature and any means to escape it. Especially there graffiti expresses life and stimulates our muted senses.
DOWN WITH THEIR LAWS, WHICH ENSLAVE US!
FOR THE FREEDOM TO EXPRESS YOURSELF:
GRAFFITI IS NO CRIME!
Freedom for OZ, N. and M. and everybody, who is prosecuted for turning dull urban environments into a colourful and lively place!
OZ’s is a 61 year old man from Hamburg (Germany), who has been already charged with a total of 8 years imprisonment for his graffiti and also got brutally beaten up by private security guards several times. His smileys, loops and also political slogans can be found almost everywhere across Hamburg but are present in other cities of Europe, too. After the prosecution appealed against the interim judgment, which sentenced him to a penalty of € 1,500, he is now threatened to be sentenced to jail for up to two years. 
N. and M. are accused of ‘property damage with graffiti in more than 20 cases’, furthermore they are suspected of ‘turning over hunting platforms and smearing them’. The state’s ‘evidences’ are their vegan lifestyle, a crossed O instead of Ö, which one of them privately uses and that was in the graffiti, as well as a heart-shaped anarchist sign, which accordingly to the investigators is a ‘unique sign in the graffiti scene’. An intention to prosecute can be seen by the house searches, which did not provide any evidence, unless you consider the before mentioned ‘evidence’ as that. The trial date is set on Monday, May 21th, 2012, at 9 am in the court of Kempten (Germany), room 170.
Call for solidarity actions for N. and M.
“We need you all! Be creative, get creative!
Do solidarity actions in your city and support our campaign for the accused N. and M. from Kempten! Glue posters, spread leaflets, murals, stencils, banners and others. We are interested in what you like! Send us photos of your actions or when you recognize a supportive action and we will publish your sign of practical solidarity on our homepage!
Sußbauer (translator’s note: agent of the so called ‘office for state protection’) thinks that only the accused are able to paint anarcho-hearts and Ö with slash. Let’s show him that this isn’t the case!”
Update, 24-5/2012: The trial against N. and M. is over. Both got a prison sentence of six months but were released. Each of them is now on three years’ probation!