REFUGEE BURNED ALIVE IN HIS JAIL CELL
The following documents, in chronological order, are a
collection of
the
latest campaign work done in the case of Oury Jalloh,
the 21 year-old
refugee from Sierra Leone/Guinea Conakry who was
burned alive in his
jail
cell on the 7th of January in the german city of
Dessau. We continue to
work on this issue and are in desperate need of
international support.
This is because the authorities are doing everything
possible to hide
the
truth. Please circulate this information to as many
groups and
individuals
as possible. We would be very grateful for any support
you could give
us.
Possibilities include organizing protests against the
german embassy in
your country, fax campaigns, sending letters of
protest, publishing the
information in local press, indymedia, etc. We can
also arrange
interviews
in: English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic.
Please remember to inform us about all solidarity
events or
publications,
as this information is needed in order to document the
campaign.
E-Mails
can be sent to: plataforma@???
In Memory of Oury Jalloh!
Contents:
Oury Jallow: BURNED ALIVE IN HIS JAIL CELL
Neither forgive nor forget!
NEVER AGAIN!
Who knew Oury Jallow or Laye Kondé? Who knows
something about their
lives,
the families they left behind, their feelings and
their fears? Who
knows
how they died and why?
On the 7th of January, two Africans died at the hands
of the german
police. In germany, the 7th of January was just
another day. Normal.
Simply another day which for many people belongs to
the past andlike
the
pastis forgotten. Nothing more and nothing less than
another Friday in
the first month of a new year.
Other people dont have such short memories and they
also dont forget.
Whats more, there are some people for whom the 7th of
January
represents
and will continue to represent another day in the
infamous colonial
history of this country and of this continent; people
who can only
understand the death of two Africans to represent a
continuation of the
past and the present. One single nightmare.
The facts:
Oury Jallow and Laye Kondé, both from Sierra Leone,
died because they
and
their like are not welcomed in this country. They died
because they
found
themselves in a country that continues to say
Ausländer Raus!
(Foreigners Out!) they died because both the german
state and the
society
do everything in their means to isolate, exclude,
destroy and expulse
Oury, Laye and many, many others like them.
Oury died tied to a bed in his police cell in the city
of Dessau,
burned
alive in what the authorities claim to have been a
suicide. Laye, on
the
other hand, died far away from there, in the city of
Bremen, his lungs
filled with a liquid forced into his body by the
police who were
attempting to make him vomit out the drugs he was
supposedly hiding.
Do you wish to have more information? Should we be
more objective?
Hows
this: According to the newspaper Die Zeit from the 9th
of March, [only
January of this year] a right-wing extremist crime is
committed each
hour.
Officially, 745 crimes and 39 acts of violence of the
extreme right
were
committed in all of Germany [...] According to last
years statistics,
there were a total of 7.943 crimes and 489 acts of
violence of the
extreme
right.
Do you think Oury and Laye were included in their
statistics?
More objectivity? Here is an article published by the
newspaper TAZ,
which
wrote: according to a study of the conflict and
violence researcher
Wilhelm Heitmeyer, the large, silent majority is
amazingly large. 60
percent of all germans believe that too many
foreigners live in this
country. 69 percent are bothered by the fact that they
are still being
associated with the crimes against the Jewish people.
Of these 69
percent,
half of them consider themselves to be part of the
political center.
Confirmed in terms that all of us can understand,
there is no doubt has
such a horrendous crime can be committed in silence,
whereas the
authorities clearly are doing everything they can to
cover up a crime
that
has for a long time been a daily horror for many
people of non-European
heritage.
But what we tell you now is nothing new. It is not new
for you and it
is
not new for us. And you, just like us, know it very
well. Isnt this
what
they call normal? Is this not the mundane, everyday
situation, even
if
not for you personally? But then again, you dont see
it as your
problem;
it happened to somebody else. When you read thisif
you read thisyou
will
probably feel uncomfortable and maybe even upset. This
is also a normal
reaction. You, just like us, are used to your
indifference.
Now, in Dessau, the attorney general is rejecting the
possibility of a
second, independent autopsy, which could confirm such
unanswered
questions
like: were his wrists really broken or not? Now,
although they appear
to
have changed their minds, the authorities are
creating difficulties
for
a public religious ceremony to commemorate the
lifeand deathof just
another African whom to many was a brother and a
friend.
The friends of Oury have said they will carry out the
procession with
or
without the permission of the authorities and that
they will continue
to
denounce what is really happening in the city of
Dessau. Since
maintaining
such a strong position often times means that those
who refuse to bow
their heads are left alone, it is even more important
that we share in
their fraternal support to ensure that Oury receives a
dignified
treatment
in this country. At least once.
One last word. It doesnt cost you neither too much
time nor money to
support the friends of Oury in making sure he at least
finds that in
death
which this country has denied to him in life: respect.
It is just one
single day of your normal life. Come to Dessau!
We demand:
A second and independent autopsy
An independent investigation of the circumstances
surrounding Ourys
death
A judicial process against the responsible police for
homicide
Reparations for the family of Oury Jallow
An end to police brutality and control
¡¡¡JUSTICE!!!
Press Release: Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh,
Berlin/Dessau
03-21-2005
MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES DEMAND CLARIFICATION
IN THE CASE OF OURY JALLOH
The Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh (Dessau)
condemns the attempts
of
the State Attorney of Dessau to block further
investigations of the
body
of Oury Jallohnecessary in order to resolve
unanswered
questionsbefore
his body is sent back to Guinea-Conakry. Oury Jalloh
died on the 7th of
January under still unclear circumstances. Together
with other migrant
and
anti-racist initiatives we demand an x-ray to be
carried out on the
corpse
in order to determine the true causes of his death as
well as an
immediate
stop to attempts to repatriate his corpse before a
final forensic
report
is emitted and can be medically confirmed.
Furthermore, the Initiative
in
Memory of Oury Jalloh denounces that city officials
have denied the
possibility of carrying out the funeral proceedings in
the city center.
The death of Oury Jalloh should have provoked a wave
of condemnation.
The
death of Oury Jalloh should be a shame for a country
which is this year
celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of Nazi
horror. But this is
not the case. On the contrary: German officials, the
society and the
press
are silent. Even five years after Antonio Adriano from
Mozambique was
murdered by three Nazis on the streets of Dessau.
The facts:
Nobody doubts that Oury Jalloh, who died on the 7th of
January in a
police
station in Dessau, tied by his hand and feet to a bed
and burned alive,
occurred under what are still unclear circumstances.
Likewise, as
anybody
who has any knowledge about this case knows, there are
still many, many
unanswered questions. Nevertheless, everything is
being done in order
to
hide the truth about what really happened on the
morning of the 7th of
January. Thus, for example, the State Attorney has
refused Regina Götz,
the attorney contracted by Oury's mother to represent
her, requests to
carry out a post mortem x-ray in order to determine
the exact cause of
death. This in spite of the fact that official police
reported that
Oury
Jalloh violently resisted his detention, that force
was used to subdue
him, or the fact that early pressed reports stated
that both Jalloh's
wrists were broken.
According to the lawyer, still unclear is also the
issue of how a
lighter
could have made its way into the cell when the
responsible police
officers
claimed in their first interrogation that it would
have been impossible
to
overlook when his body and belongings were searched.
Furthermore, on
the
10th of January, in the first official inventory taken
of items found
in
the cell at the time of the death of Oury Jalloh, no
lighter was
registered. One day later, on the 11th of January, the
lighter appears
in
the reports. Other open questions are: why was Oury
Jalloh tied by his
hand an feet to his bed for several hours? How can a
fire-proof
mattress
be set on fire by a person who is tied to it? And how
can it be that
three
police officers cannot hear the screams of a person
burning to deathif
this is to be believedand not have noticed any fire
in spite of the
fire
alarms and in spite of the intercom system of the
police station.
Not just the State Attorney is in a hurry to close the
case. The
authorities also present a united wall of silence when
the subject
turns
to what really happened on the 7th of January. Even
the public funeral
procession which is being organized by Oury Jalloh's
friendsthe only
people who have done anything at all in support of the
truth and the
family of Oury Jallohhas been prohibited by the
authorities due to
"political reasons," so that the funeral will now take
place outside of
Dessau. In all of this, the only thing clear appears
to be the interest
of
the authorities to do everything possible to send Oury
back as soon as
possible to where he came from so that he and the
truth can be buried,
far
from the place where he died.
Why did Oury Jalloh die? Why were there so few reports
in the press,
many
of which contradicted each other? How can there be
such silence from
all
parts? Perhaps because the victim was just another
black, another
African,
another asylum seeker who died or was even murdered?
Is this once again
"normal" in Germany? Who would have thought that just
fourteen years
following the racist attack in Hoyerswerda and 60
years following
Auschwitz that such a horrendous crime would be met by
a wall of
silence?
According to Attorney General Folker Bittmann:
[there] is no longer
any
criminal suspicion against the police officer who
searched Oury
Jalloh's
upper body. Perhaps this is the reason why the State
Attorney denies
the
possibility of further examinations of the corpse
before it is sent
back
to Africa. Likewise, local politicians must surely
have good reasons to
ban the funeral procession from the city center.
The press has the word.
We demand:
Repatriation stop until there is an independent
post-mortem forensic
x-ray
An independent investigation of the circumstances
surrounding Ourys
death
A judicial process against the responsible police for
homicide
Reparations for the family of Oury Jallow
An end to police brutality and control
¡¡¡JUSTICE!!!
For more information about the death of Oury Jalloh,
our demands, or
the
funeral procession, please contact: Mouktar Bah
(0176-29435634) E-Mail:
plataforma@???
Funeral Speech given by self-organized refugees and
migrants group
Plataforma
We are assembled here today to commemorate the
lifeand deathof Oury
Jalloh. We have come to pay our final respects to a
person who was both
a
brother and friend to many people. Now, he is no
longer with us.
It is difficult to find words to describe what
happened on that day the
7th of January. For many of us who come from countries
in the so-called
Third World, it is clear that the death of Oury Jalloh
could have been
the
death of any one of us. With so many racist police
controls, abuse and
even violence, it may have even been a matter of being
the wrong person
at
the wrong time at the wrong place.
For us and for all of you, there are still many
unanswered questions
surrounding the death of Oury Jalloh. There are too
many
contradictions,
too many inconsistencies and even too many attempts to
cover up the
truth
that even the German Association of Criminal Police
said about the
investigations of the case: an image has been given
of unconcerned and
incapable police. If this is what their own say, what
are we to think?
So now Oury, a refugee in this country, is dead. Born
a refugee and
died a
refugee. A refugee his whole life. He has taken with
him to his grave
the
status given to him in this country for someone
seeking protection from
persecution: Duldung (literally tolerance and
technically postponement
of
the deportation).
But Oury was not alone. He was one of the many
refugees who have died
because they were forced to flee in search of a better
life. Of
something
to eat and maybe evenOury Jalloh was only 21
years-oldthe possibility
to
study. For some reason we fail to understand, this is
considered by
many
European governments and their citizens to be a crime.
And thus,
refugees
seeking protection are treated as mere criminals. And
like people
criminalized by society, their rights and dignity are
taken away from
them; refugees are people for whom opportunity and
respect remain
foreign
words lacking any kind of real meaning in their lives.
Especially here.
Especially in Germany, where we are isolated and
excluded from society.
And now spring has returned to Europe. The winds begin
to change, the
weather warms up, and the waters of the Mediterranean
Ocean begin to
calm.
Much more than new possibilities for the European
tourist, this means
that
more and more bodies will wash upon the shores of
Fortress Europe,
symbols
of a dream that died in journey. There are ten of
thousands of them,
some
dead and some who manage to live another day. They
risk their lives to
come hereand for what?
What is the price that must be paid to reach the
shores of Fortress
Europe? What price did Oury Jalloh pay to come here,
surviving the
journey
only to be burned alive in paradise? And his family?
What kind of
images
ran through their minds? That their son finally made
it to Europe? That
Oury, their son, would finally have an opportunity to
be something more
than a refugee in his life? That he would receive
education and
employment? That he finally had reached the place of
civilization,
progress and opportunity?
Do you think Oury told his family about the conditions
he was forced to
live in as a refugee? Did he tell them about Duldung
and Heims,
Residenzpflicht and Abschiebung? Did he tell them that
he was often
times
controlled and abused by the police because he was a
black man? That he
was denied the possibility to work or study, to move
freely or even
learn
the German language? Did he tell them that the only
official
opportunity
left open to him was to sit in his Heimeat and sleep,
eat and
sleepuntil
his deportation notification came and his Duldung
ended? Did he tell
them that it was deportation or toonce again!flee in
search of
survival?
But now it is too late. Oury Jalloh did not survive.
He died in a jail
cell in a town called Dessau. Oury diedburned
alivehis hands and feet
tied to his jail bed. And we are here to remember him.
We are here to
pay
him and other like him the honor and respect they
deserve but were
eternally denied: respect and dignity. We are here to
share our sorrow
and
pain with those who have died on the shores and within
the walls of the
European Fortress.
We have also come today with a word for all of you
present here today.
We
have come to tell you that this situation cannot
continue and that we
will
no longer remain silent in the face of such systematic
and widespread
inhumanity. And so we make a call to the German
society and to the
German
government: Stop this violence! The exclusion,
criminalization and
racist
controls must stop! Stop treating people like
criminals because the
color
of their skin or the color of their passports! Stop
this injustice!
To our fellow refugees and migrants we say to you
today that the only
way
to truly honor Oury Jalloh is to make sure that we do
everything in our
power to see that something like this never happen
again. We must
support
one another to overcome our fear and to break our
isolation. In order
to
truly pay our respects to Oury Jalloh we must see to
it that his unjust
death be turned into something positive: our coming
together to say
ENOUGH! ENOUGH VIOLENCE! ENOUGH INJUSTICE!
A final word. In his poem How long? Palestinian poet
Muhammad Aziz
al-Hababi wrote, When will we enjoy the seeds of our
land and the
sweetness of our sky? When will the sun find a place
in our hearts?
Will a
day finally come? The day. Just like for everyone
else? Everyone seeks
peace. We prefer to be in struggle against the death
that blinds us
[...]
Everyday. Relentlessly.
We too believe that this is a fight against the
culture and logic of
death, of war, of historic injustice. If we have it in
our hearts, this
is
something we can share together.
Press Release: Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh,
Berlin/Dessau
03-29-2005
MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: REPATRIATION OF OURY JALLOH
TEMPORARILY
STOPPED.
INDEPENDENT AUTOPSY
TO TAKE PLACE THIS WEEK
The Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh makes know
thatdespite the
lack
of support from the State Attorneys Officea second
autopsy will be
carried out on the corpse of Oury Jalloh.
Declaration of the Initiative in Memory of Oury
Jalloh:
An important step was taken last Saturday in informing
the public about
what happened on the 7th of January in the police
station of Dessau.
Nevertheless, the only hope of finding out the truth
is by keeping up
the
pressure. It should be known that this is exactly what
we are going to
do.
We criticize the fact that hardly anybody from Dessau
and very few
Germans
took part in the funeral or the demonstration. We ask
ourselves if this
is
because Oury Jalloh was considered to be just another
refugee to be
deported.
In our opinion, the cover-up of this whole story is
taking place on
multiple levels and is being carred out by all
authorities involved.
Irregardless of what the results of a second autopsy
may prove to be,
it
is clear that everything is being done to hinder a
clarification of
what
truly happened.
Here are some of the unanswered questions regarding
the case of Oury
Jalloh:
Our deep suspicion regarding the possibility of a
completely drunk
person
who is chained by his hands and feet can burn himself
to death is
already
clear. Additionally, we ask:
What type of material was the mattress made out of?
How does it burn, how quickly and, above all,
how much material
is
needed to produce a fire of 365 degrees Celsius?
Where exactly was the mattress damaged and what
procedures do the police have when such mattresses are
damaged?
Where is the mattress and how much of the
mattress is still
intact?
Furthermore, we are curious to know, since we assume
that a police
station
is well equipped with video surveillance:
Where are the video cameras?
Where are the complete video tapes from the
police station
beginning
at the time of Oury Jallohs being brought into the
cell, his body
search and finally his being chained hand and foot to
the prison
bed?
Other questions are:
Where is the protocol from the fire department about
their intervention
and what does it say about Oury Jalloh and the
conditions in the cell?
How
are the acoustics in the police station (from where
can you hear the
screams of a man who is being burned alive?)?
At a later date we will make known other doubts we
have about the case.
Finally, we would like to make inform thatdespite the
lack of support
from the State Attorneys Officea second autopsy will
be carried out
on
the corpse of Oury Jalloh. The costs will be
temporarily paid for by
the
Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh.
We demand:
Repatriation stop until there is an independent
post-mortem forensic
x-ray
An independent investigation of the circumstances
surrounding Ourys
death
Establishment of an independent commission to
investigate the case A
judicial process against the responsible police for
homicide
Reparations for the family of Oury Jallow
An end to police brutality and control
¡¡¡JUSTICE!!!
For more information about the death of Oury Jalloh or
our demands
please
contact: Mouktar Bah (0176-29435634) E-Mail:
plataforma@???
www.thevoiceforum.org /
www.attac.de/halle/oury/
____________
Dt/eng. Pressemitteilung von 29.03. ÜBERFÜHRUNG
VORÜBERGEHEND GESTOPPT.
/
REPATRIATION OF OURY JALLOH TEMPORARILY STOPPED.
Submitted by voice on Tue, 29/03/2005 - 03:52. Camps,
Lager and
Detention
Centers
dt,eng
DEUTSCH: Pressemitteilung: Initiative in Gedenken an
Oury Jalloh,
Berlin/Dessau 29-03-2005
MIGRANTINNEN UND FLÜCHTLINGE: ÜBERFÜHRUNG
VORÜBERGEHEND GESTOPPT.
ZWEITE,
UNABHÄNGIGE OBDUKTION WIRD DIESE WOCHE NOCH
STATTFINDEN
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/ind-intervention
ENGLISH: Press Release: Initiative in Memory of Oury
Jalloh,
Berlin/Dessau
03-29-2005
MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: REPATRIATION OF OURY JALLOH
TEMPORARILY STOPPED.
INDEPENDENT AUTOPSY TO TAKE PLACE THIS WEEK
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/pr-platform
DEUTSCH: Redebeitrag der Plataforma in Dessau
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/plataforma-dessau
ENGLISH: Platform's Speech at the Funeral for Oury
Jalloh, 26.03.05 in
Dessau
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/pl-spk
PresseArtikel Archives: 26.03.25 - Nach Tod in
Polizeigewahrsam
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/Press-dessau
Faxkampagne:
Dringender Aufruf zu einer Faxkampagne: Initiative im
Gedenken an Oury
Jalloh
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/oury-fax
Stellungnahme zur Presseerklärung der
Staatsanwaltschaft
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/support-position
Press info: 21.03.2005
German: MIGRANTINNEN UND FLÜCHTLINGE FORDERN -
AUFKLÄRUNG IM FALL VON
OURY
JALLOH
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/mouktar-dessau
English: MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES DEMAND CLARIFICATION IN
THE CASE OF OURY
JALLOH
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/Mouktar-dessau2
En Español:DECLARACION DEL CASO DE OURLY JALLOH
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/Mouktar-dessau3
French: FÉMIGRÉS ET RÉFUGIÉS DEMANDENT UNE
CLARIFICATION DU CAS OURY
JALLOH
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/Mouktar-dessau4
Dessau, am 26.03.05: Trauerzug für Oury Jallow -
Platform Aufruf in
eng,french,spanish
NIE WIEDER!!!
verbrannt in seiner Zelle
Kein Vergessen und kein Vergeben!
Trauerzug in Dessau
26.03.05 - Hauptbahnhof Dessau 12 Uhr
Wer kennt Oury Jallow oder Laye Kondé? Wer weiss etwas
über ihre Leben
und
deren Familien, die sie zurückließen, über ihre
Gefühle und Ängste? Wer
weiß, wie sie starben und warum?
Am 7. Januar kamen in den Händen der Polizei zwei
Afrikaner zu Tode. Am
7.
Januar war in Deutschland einfach ein Tag, wie jeder
andere.
Gewöhnlich.
Ein Tag, der für viele Menschen schon längst der
Vergangenheit angehört
und damit wie so oft in Vergessenheit gerät. Schlicht
ein Freitag im
ersten Monat des neuen Jahres, nicht mehr und auch
nicht weniger......
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/platform-call
ENGLISH: Dessau, 26.03.05 for Oury Jallows Funeral
procession... NEVER
AGAIN!!!
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/eng-dessau.
FRENCH: Dessau, 26.03.05 procession de funérailles en
la mémoire d´Oury
Jallow...PLUS JAMAIS!!!
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/fr-dessau.
SPNAISH: Dessau, 26.03.05 procesión funeral en memoria
de Oury
Jallow...
NUNCA MÁS!!!
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/sp-dessau.
mehr info:
-Elf Wochen nach dem Feuertod eines Afrikaners
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/dessau.
-1 Monat nach dem Tod von Oury Jalloh im
DessauerPolizeigewahrsam -
PressespiegelAsylbewerber war gefesselt
http://www.thevoiceforum.org/1month-after.
http://www.attac.de/halle/oury/.
http://germany.indymedia.org/2005/03/110003.shtml.
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