On the 4th of June an unauthorized anarchist rally took place at the Katharinentreppen, just opposite the main railway station of Dortmund, and a spontaneous demonstration followed on the city’s central commercial street, Westenhellweg.
Around 80 participants were gathered at the rally, which began at 7pm according to schedule. Three militant speeches were read out: the first was the text of a flyer that was given out to hundreds of passers-by during the demo; the second speech did not only mention the riots and police violence in Turkey, but made reference also to the repression during the Blockupy-protests in Frankfurt (a few days ago); the last contribution dealt generally with riots and indicated the possibilities of anarchist activity, making it also clear that violence primarily emanates from the domination and not the rioters. We consciously decided to carry out this action without a loudspeaker truck, in order to be more flexible in case of police attack, and to generate a different combative spirit.
It is also encouraging for us that only one Turkish national flag as well as two flags of the Pirate Party appeared during the gathering, but were not carried during the spontaneous demonstration. After the reading of speeches, the participants decided to take their solidarity to the streets of downtown Dortmund, and a loud demonstration of nearly 70 people, unauthorized and without police presence, reached the Reinolidkirche.
Fliers were passed out and slogans were chanted, such as ‘İsyan, Devrim, Anarşi (Revolt, Revolution, Anarchy)’, ‘Amore, Anarchia, Autonomia (Love, Anarchy, Autonomy)’, ‘Istanbul, das war Mord; Wiederstand an jedem Ort (Istanbul: that was murder; resistance everywhere)’, ‘No Justice, No Peace, Fight the Police,’ and ‘Taksim ist überall, Taksim ist hier (Taksim is everywhere, Taksim is here)’.
Even for a while, the march breached the capitalist normality in the commercialized city centre of Dortmund, and several people showed positive reaction to the demo, which ended at the Reinoldikirche. As the comrades dispersed, police car lights could be seen from a distance down the Westenhellweg. In the following minutes tens of patrol cars drove through the city centre, looking for suspicious people. To our knowledge, only a few persons were stopped by police for ID checks hundreds of meters away, in the park north of the railway station.
We consider this rally and demonstration a big success. In Dortmund especially — where everything viewed even remotely as ‘radical-left’ is being suppressed by all means — we managed to ‘do our own thing’; with self-determination and no cops around. It’s been a long time since an anarchist/radical-left demo took place so unmolested. We hope that we have set a signal, not just of solidarity with the struggling people in Turkey but also locally in Dortmund. We are aware that this success was only made possible due to total failure of the police. However, we are optimistic that there can be a self-confident culture of demonstrations in the future, and that the anarchist movement in the Ruhr region will gain more strength.
For more self-determined actions! Be unpredictable for the repression organs!
Freedom to all prisoners in Turkey! Keep the revolt going!
İsyan, Devrim, Anarşi! Revolt, Revolution, Anarchy!
Anarchists from the Ruhr region