Social Forum Journey

Italian poster for the Manifestation on 29th of September

CALL TO ACTION IN EUROPE
AGAINST THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CURRENT CRISES

We call upon all social movements in Europe to unite against the crisis and participate in the international day of action on 29th of September initiated by the European Trade Union Confederation. Only together can we achieve the necessary solutions to the social and environmental crisis. We say yes to solutions creating jobs and serving common needs paid by stopping the rich from accumulating a larger and larger part of the wealth in society.

The whole world has been hit by a severe financial, economic, social and environmental crisis. Globally, the most severely hit region is Central and Eastern Europe. But all over Europe from Latvia to Iceland, Russia to Romania and Greece to Spain we can see social and environmental problems growing and we are sure that the worst of them are still to come. Today’s crises are  systemic ones driven by the neoliberal ideology that have sold out long-term investment, jobs, wages, the environment and the general well-being of the planet and its people for the benefit of a few.

The aggressive principles of financial capitalism are building up threats to democracy and peace.  Nationalisation of problems caused by the multiple crisis leads to divisions and hunt for scapegoats within the various societies, as well as to splits between North and South, East and West. We can see the advance of Right wing, populist and extremist forces as well as the state repression of progressive movements in many parts of the world.

The representatives of the social movements of Europe gathered in Istanbul between 1st and 4th July 2010 explored the effects of these crises on the lives of people. They came to the conclusion that the EU and the IMF with the complicity of the governments impose austerity and social regression policies, which cause serious social degradation and make people fall into poverty. The global crises are spilling over into our lives, threatening jobs, savings, pensions and public services and environmental protection everywhere!

To challenge these policies it is an urgent need to build an European-wide struggle which brings together social movements, workers, peasants, women, youth, environmental and others activists organized in associations, trade unions or networks of different kinds. Solutions can be found by simultaneously addressing the social and environmental needs. We should elaborate constructive programmes for a transition of our societies towards social and environmental justice, protecting and developing our commons.

We call upon all peoples’ movements in Europe to act against the crises and struggle for solutions that give jobs and make the rich pay. What we need is a massive mobilisation across all of Europe on the 29th of September 2010.

3rd September, 2010                                                    Prague Spring II Network

More information about 29th of September mobilization at:

The meeting in Prague March 2010 that initiated the Prague Spring II network.

Read more at:
The Alternative to the Right-Wing Extremism in the Time of Social and Ecological Crisis
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1543
And more contributions to the conference Prague and the activities of the network at ESF in Istanbul here:
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?s=prague

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Tash & Noah: Freedom speech at city court from Climate Collective on Vimeo.

The court has found climate activists Noah Weiss and Natasha Verco from Climate Collective in Copenhagen innocent to all charges made by the state prosecutor. Among the charges was incitement to violence against police and disturbing the public order. Both were arrested in connection with protests during COP 15 in Copenhagen, at different dates that were not linked to the demonstrations.

Noah and Tash with the infamous bolt cutter

Trials have been a tragicomedy. The two were initially accused of guilt for almost all actions taken during the Climate Conference. This after the same pattern causing ten-double penalties for protests at the EU summit in Gothenburg 2001, where all the accused were considered to have collective guilt to all riots that motivated extra heavy penalties. In Denmark, however, some of the most extreme unreasonable charges of terrorism against the accused were dropped early in the process but the accused were anyway faced with the possibility of long prison terms according to the new Danish law against civil disobedience.

The trials reached one of its tragicomical highlights when the prosecutor pointed out that one of the notebooks seized from one of the accused contained a notice of a bolt cutter. He took this as an evidence of planning violent action in connection with protests against the policies that create climate refugees by lack of fair and effective action against global warming. After the prosecutor’s accusation members of the audience brought the bolt cutter to the court room. It was three meters long and consisted of papier-mâché and is used in symbolic protests against the refugee policies.

RELEASE THE CLIMATE ACTIVISTS - PUT THE COPS IN PRISON, banner at Solidarity action at the Danish embassy in Stockholm by Klimax before the verdict

The trials of the two accused and other preventive arrested or detained during the climate summit, have lined up many similar desperate attempts to prove activists guilt and police innocence. This was also for long the view in the media during the summit but it did not hold in the court. Denmark did not repeat the decay in a judicial system after a summit in the way it was done in Sweden after Gothenburg in 2001. The wind has turned, and the threat of 12 years in prison, hundreds of thousands of Danish crowns in fines and expulsion from the country where the two accused have their daily lives have been turned to the acquittal on all charges. Long live the Danish judiciary’s rejection of the police worldview and freedom!

Tord Björk, active in the Friends of the Earth Sweden

Links:

Climate Collective website: http://www.klimakollektivet.dk/en/start/

Danish newspaper Politiken on appeal: http://politiken.dk/indland/1048307/klimaaktivister-frifundet-for-vold/

Natasha and Noah at the demo, photo Tord Björk

Report on August 18 demonstration in support of the accused and declaring that nothing but acquittal was an opportunity if law and justice should be based on truth, according to Danish tradition since 1243:
Danish law in 1243: Truth! 2010: Power? http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1800

On the trials against the police for the detention of innocent people during the climate summit with request for damages:
Final countdown for Political Theater at COP15 Trial, http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1846

The historical mass arrest of 918 innocent demonstrators on December 12 without collective efforts by the Danish organizers to act in solidarity with their invited marchers. The Danish courts are now doing what the Danish representative organizations afraid of their reputation in mass media did not do: find the accusations against the non-violent activists and demonstrators invalid.

Background to the trials and the lack of collective protests against Danish organizations repression during the summit:
The Whole World on Trial
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1109

Denmark: Letter from two climate activists facing jail for Copenhagen protest
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/43500

From Climate Collective website, see link above:

Danish Court: Climate activists are innocent
Posted on 31st August 2010

The Copenhagen City Court has today ruled that Natasha Verco and Noah Weiss are innocent. The two climate activists were charged for organizing illegal activities during the COP15 summit in Copenhagen in 2009. But the charges didn’t stand in court. The verdict discredits the violent methods adopted by police during the climate summit, when politically active people were denied their democratic right to criticize the climate negotiations.

Natasha Verco feels that the entire process has been absurd:

There has been a very clear political purpose behind these court cases, and the verdict is totally absurd. In the whole case the evidence has been related to fully legal activities, that the police has tried to manipulate, in order to make them appear illegal. It has been all from prints of posters, to finding parking lots fors sound equipments and participating in open information meetings for hundreds of people.

Both Natasha and Noah feel, that the case should put an end to the police undemocratic methods:

I see this as a victory, not only for us, but for the legal rights in Denmark. And it also means that no longer can the police use manipulation of evidence and lies to repress politically active people. I assume that also Tannie and Stine, who are going to court in October, will be acquitted as well, says Noah Weiss.
Background

2000 people have been arrested during the climate summit in December, and many were preventively arrested during the big climate demonstration on December 12th, 2009. These incidents, has later been criticized, among others, by Amnesty International. Now there are four people charged for having, according to police, planned actions during the summit. Among them are Natasha Verco, 32 years old Australian woman, and the American student Noah Weiss.

Natasha Verco and Noah Weiss are accused to having planned violence against police, disturbance of public order and vandalism. These are the charges, that could lead to several years of prison and deportation.

Action in Sweden in support of Noah and Natasha commenting on the verdict:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=0&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.klimax.se%2Farkiv%2Faktion-mot-danska-ambassaden-upprattelse-aktivisterna-fran-cop15

Australian woman freed from Danish prison

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2785466.htm

Copenhagen protesters acquitted
Jessica Mahar, Sydney Morning Herald

“Speaking outside the court, Ms Verco, the co-founder of Friends of the Earth Sydney, said justice was served and called the outcome a win for free speech and democracy.”
http://www.smh.com.au/world/copenhagen-protesters-acquitted-20100901-14nmg.html

Activist prepares to face court in Copenhagen
Amy Corderoy
March 12, 2010

“AN AUSTRALIAN arrested and held for nearly three weeks for organising a protest against the Copenhagen climate change conference has been charged with offences commonly used in terrorism cases.

Natasha Verco - who faces up to 12½ years in prison if convicted - said the authorities had targeted her because she was not a Danish citizen.”

http://www.smh.com.au/world/activist-prepares-to-face-court-in-copenhagen-20100311-q1m8.html

12 December 2004 - Call of the Land

Natasha Verco and others on Australians’ relationship with the physical environment.

ABC production

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1264129.htm

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Assembly  Education
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

Student activists from Istanbul at seminar during ESF

We, people of the public education, gathered in Istanbul for the sixth European Social Forum call for a period of mobilization next autumn

We want to use  the 29th  of September, a day of demonstration and trade union actions across every country of Europe and the surrounding dates ,to extend the mobilization and  to act together in Europe on our platform.

During this period, from the end of September to the beginning October,
we call for mobilizations,  strikes, demonstrations and actions all around Europe to reaffirm the right to free public education for everybody and to defend and increase  workers rights on the basis of the platform below.

We will  continue supporting, during the following two years, national demonstrations and counter summit against the European education ministers summits, as we did last May in Madrid.

We will organize  meetings in several european cities in order to involve more and more people,  in order to share our experiences and connect our struggles against neoliberal policies, we will actively approach students and workers organizations involved in the education struggles to participate in these meetings ;we will therefore issue a call for participating in the next meeting of education.

The crisis must be paid by those who caused it !

Our governments are using the crisis  to cancel all the workers rights obtained  by the movements in the last 100 years and to decrease salaries and pensions.
They are using the diktat of IMF and EU to approve  anti crisis measures paid only by workers (like in Greece , in Italy, Portugal, Spain ,France…) one of the solutions is to tax speculators. They have to pay the crisis!

Stop cuts of public spending in education, stop reduction of the curricula and  cuts to school time,  classes and subjects, stop privatization and  co modification of education systems:
we struggle for more investments in public education , for free education and research;
we struggle  to stop the casualization of  school workers in order to provide a better quality of education for everybody.

Stop the introduction of  evaluation tests based on skills determined by the market, stop teaching for competences oriented by the market:
we struggle for the right to free, secular, quality education , for the right to critical thinking, for the right, for every human being to have a full access to knowledge, and to become an aware and active citizen , to have equal rights for genders and not to have a patriarchal perspective of education.
We struggle for the right to education in one’s own tongue.

We support the Word Education Forum , in Santiago de Compostella from 10th to 13th December together with the WSF in Dakar and we’ll support the  World Education Forum in Palestine,  from 28th to 31st  October and we will work in order to organize there activities together with our Palestinian friends.

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From the climate justice network
“System change, not climate change!
A just transition towards a good life for all”
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

Presenting the climate justice network statement to ASM

The newspapers may speak of financial and economic crises, but when we look around ourselves, we don’t see derivates and financial markets – what we see is the destruction of communities, of our social and natural environments, of our relations to each other. What we see is capitalism destroying us. Against this destruction, and the austerity that follows in its wake, people are resisting, people are fighting back, people are beginning to create the new worlds we know to be necessary: from Ghana to Greece, from Copenhagen to Cochabamba, from Bangkok to Brussels. We from climate and social justice movements gathered at the European Social Forum in Istanbul, are a part of and inspired by these global processes of resistance and creation, but also realise that we need to fight where we stand: to create another world, we also need to create another Europe and tear down the walls of the fortress that surround it.
Against those who try to create divisions between social and ecological justice, we assert that they do not contradict each other. They are and have to be complementary. Our vision is of a good life for all, not a nightmare of authoritarian eco-austerity.
Against those who oppose people’s desire to have good and well-paid jobs and to move beyond the madness of infinite growth on a finite planet, we are calling for a just transition in the way we work, in the structures of production and consumption. While there are many things we need more of, there is much we need less of. For example, we need to stop the destructive energy production practices involving coal, oil, nuclear and hydropower, or to end the madness of building individual cars for everybody. At the same time, we need to expand community-controlled renewable energies, food sovereignty as well as public services that contribute to our goal of a good life for all, like free public transport, health, housing and education. This would create millions of socially and ecologically useful jobs.
This is what we mean by just transition, by climate justice: it does not mean having the ‘right’ position on what is being negotiated at UN-climate summits. It’s not about parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. Although it is important to change our individual behaviours, climate justice is about fundamentally changing our model of production and consumption of food, goods, energy, of our entire lives. It is about finally making amends for the ecological debt we owe the rest of the world.
We in Europe are only now starting on the road towards climate justice, creating and resisting in many different ways, such as direct action, the building of local alternatives, civil disobedience or public campaigning to name a few. There are many opportunities already such as:

-    26/8: solidarity actions coinciding with the trial in Copenhagen of Tash Verco and Noah Weiss

-    Summer 2010 : Climate and No Border camps are happening all over Europe

-    29/9: European trade union day of action

-    between the 10th and the 17th of October, different networks are calling for action on climate justice: the 12th will be a day of direct action for climate justice; the 16th a day of action against Monsanto

-    From the 29th of November to the 10th of December, the 16th UN-climate summit will be held in Cancun, Mexico: we will be creating a ‘thousand Cancuns’ to protest their false solutions and point the way towards real climate and social justice

French rural activist exchanging experience at one of the seminars on just transition

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Assembly
The freedom to move, the right to stay
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

We, the people and activist groups participating in the workshops, seminars and actions organized by the Migrant Network call on fighting for the freedom of movement and the right to stay. We call on movements, organizations, individuals all over Europe in order to struggle against the murderous European border regime in which Frontex is the driving force and for the closure of all detention centers.
We call on movements, organizations individuals all over Europe to support the struggles of workers focusing on the ones without papers and rights and to fight against the racism and the precarization and exploitation of migrants, increased in the context of the global economic crisis.
We support all the campaigns, initiatives and struggles and we call on people here on continuing and strengthening networking and proceed in common transnational struggles.

Calendar

•    Greece   Swarming No border actions  27/8 – 11/9 In continuity with Lesvos NoBorder camp, actions will take place in support of the migrants and against European border regime in Samos and Lesvos islands.
•    18th of September in Paris mobilization against the new law about migration
•    Bruxelles No border camp 24/9 – 3/10.
•    5-6 of October in  Oujda/Melilla, Moroco, International Conference and an action for the 5th anniversary of the storm and the killings of migrants at the fences to EU.
•    Jan – feb 2011 Caravan from Bamako in Mali to Dakar (World Social Forum).
•    1st of  March, day without us, day of translational action to protest against the exploitation of workers without papers.

Campaigns

•    Frontexplode:  campaign against the European border agency Frontex.
•    Campaign against Dublin II - Welcome to EU network, for  information and support to refugees and migrants on their way to Europe.

Proposals
No border camp migrant Labour  focusing deeper on people moving and being exploited. There are experiences of workers without documents in France striking for months and also in different countries there are more and more struggles selforganized by migrants

Crossover with Education
Network of people working in Educational Spaces in order to elaborate projects, exchange ideas and work, resist to narrowing contents in school and the attack to public schools in order to build elitarian racist situation A mailing list is going to start and a first draft for an international call will be made

Crossover with Antirepression
Network to campaign against detention centre and the state control which is getting more and more information under the hypocrite idea of security all over Europe

Crossover with Climate Change
Climate change is determining a new category of refugees migrants. We continue saying that Freedom to move and right to stay are important. Agriculture and big projects like dams are changing the situations and force people to move as well as political, social and economical reasons

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Assembly
Peace and War
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

Peace banner bloc in the ESF demo

The war and peace assembly denounces that at a time of economic crisis, European states are increasing their military budgets and trade of weapons. The European Union  is not the “soft power” it meant to be. To protect peace and social needs, we call peace and antiwar movements to join the trade unions protest on the 29th of September.

We support the Week of Action against the NATO summit of 15-21 November 2010 in Lisbon in order to oppose the new NATO strategy that is a major obstacle to achieving world peace. We call for an immediate end of the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of the troops, and we are ready to mobilize for the tragic anniversary of the invasion on 8-9 October.

The assembly strongly supports the mobilization of Kurdish and Turkish movements for a peaceful and democratic solution of the Kurdish issue, there is no military way out of the conflict. We stand in solidarity with the Kurdish elected representatives that will be on trial on 18 October for simply defending human rights of their people.

The military occupation of Cyprus should come to an end, to allow peaceful life on the island.
We urge for a peaceful Caucasus and invite everybody to participate in the peace conference in June 2011 in Tbilissi.

We mourn the loss of those killed by the Israeli military while trying to break the illegal siege of Gaza and call for accountability of those responsible. This assembly stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Israeli movements for justice for Palestinians and endorses the Palestinian civil society call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with Palestinian rights based on international law. We call for an escalation of coordinated campaigns against institutions and companies complicit with Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, of the complicity of European governments with Israeli impunity and the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The whole region needs to be denuclearized, as stated again in the NPT conference, and Mordechai Vanunu deserves freedom and honour for his courage to reveal the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

The European Social Forum, that was a fundamental space to organize the huge 2003 mobilization against the war in Iraq, does not forget the suffering of Iraqi people and supports its human rights groups, unions and social movements through the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative that will meet in Paris in the first week of December.

The assembly supports actions and campaigns to stop private military and security companies, and campaigns against the militarization of European borders, such as the week of mobilization against Frontex on 27-31 August in Greece and actions in Bruxelles on 24 September - 3 October.

All these causes and campaigns will be celebrated in the International Day of Peace, 21 September, and in the Thematic Social Forum for a Culture of Peace in Santiago de Compostela on 9-12 December, for the global demilitarization, denuclearization of economies and societies.

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Assembly Labour
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

Asbjörn Wahl presenting the Assembly of Labour statement to ASM

The Assembly of Labour very much welcome the realisation of the 2010 Istanbul ESF, underlining the importance to reach new civil societies and new countries. We are therefore thankful to the Organising Committee in Turkey and, particularly, the Turkish trade union confederations.

During this forum many seminars and workshops have been organised, which have focused on the financial and economic crises and their dramatic consequences on workers’ rights and conditions. The need to fight the root causes of the crises has been underlined, as well as the need to fight failed policies like the austerity plans imposed in the name of public debt and the EU Stability Pact which strongly contributes to deepen the crisis.

IG Metall activists during ESF demonstration

At the Social Forum we heard reports from many European countries. Across Europe trade unions, workers and people in general have experienced forceful attacks on wages, working conditions, public services and social benefits – unemployment has grown and poverty has increased. In many countries national collective agreements, pensions and trade union rights have been considerably cut and weakened – not through negotiations with trade unions, but through government decrees.

In this way, governments, employers, multinational companies, European Union institutions and the International Monetary Fund are trying to make workers pay for the effects of the financial and economic crisis, even though we have no responsibility for the neo-liberal policies, the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top and the capitalist system which have created the crisis. The situation is dramatic. If we are not able to stop this development, the trade union, labour and social movements may possibly face a historic defeat in Europe.

The Labour Assembly therefore stresses the need to work together to develop an alternative to the current social and economic model. To this end we welcome a fruitful exchange of ideas as well as mobilisations and struggles to turn our alternatives into practice. We want a different idea of Europe based on peace, solidarity, cooperation, democracy, sustainable environment, people’s needs and social and workers’ rights.

The situation calls for massive mobilisation across Europe to prevent a defeat. The Labour Assembly therefore appeals to all trade union and social movements in Europe to take immediate and co-ordinated actions to prevent the social degradation which is going on in most countries.

We propose:

-    To support the struggles of workers and trade unions in Turkey which are under severe oppression from the government, from multinational companies and capitalist interests in general.
-    A comprehensive information campaign to inform workers all over Europe on concrete developments in each country in order to prevent workers from being played out against each other.
-    To mobilise and organise support across Europe to workers who decide to take the fight against austerity programmes and attacks on wages, workings conditions, pensions and social programmes. Their struggle is our struggle.
-    To deepen a debate in the European trade union and social movements on how to improve the policies and change the focus of our organisations in order to adapt them to the new, more aggressive attitudes of the employers, to activate the members, to strengthen the international perspective and co-ordination and to prepare our organisations for harder confrontations as a result of the attacks from employers, governments and capital.
-    That the manifestations planned for 29 September 2010 and surrounding days should be organised as an all-European event, with forceful action across Europe, a main manifestation in Brussels and general strikes where possible. This important day of action should be a step forward in a widespread wave of struggles that need to continue across Europe in a coordinated manner.

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Assembly “Solidarity of the East and the West”
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

Present 56 participants from 21 countries: Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, Turkey

Facilitator: Leo Gabriel
After the total failure of the Turkish organizers to facilitate and support the participation of social and environmental movements from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), this participation and this assembly were only enabled thanks to generous short notice donations of the World Social Forum Expansion Commission “Rosa Luxemburg Foundation”, the European leftist network transform!, members of the European Parliament from the GUE/NGL faction as well as members of the German Federal Parliament from Die Linke (The Left).

Russian Antifascist with translator on struggle against right wing extremism

Issues:
Co-operation between the East and the West in fighting right-wing extremism (RWE)
Rights of the Mother Earth, campaigning before the summit in Cancun

Tord Björk: We have to address the crisis in CEE jointly. Lot of big and rich WE organisations are reluctant to work together or even to help because they feel themselves superior. In fact, some little movements in CEE function better than big Western European organisations or TUs despite their own very bad political, legal and economic conditions and very limited financial and human resources in CEE countries.
Said Gafurov: Social movements and SF in Russia are no more marginalized, they become appropriate media attention, thanks to the help of some people from WSF and ESF. However, there is a lack of information what is happening in other CEE countries.
Françoise: E.g. women in Poland have lost their rights, like the right for abortion.
Leo Gabriel informed about the establishment of the “Prague Spring II – all-European network against right-wing extremism and populism” and recommended to make use of its resources and possibilities and to develop it jointly as an information hub between the East and the West.

Alexander Buzgalin in action at ESF

Proposals:
a) To distribute information as much as possible and on different levels: website and lobbying of left and liberal mass media.
b) Alexander Buzgalin from Russia proposed to organize a conference under an ultimate condition: those CEE groups who are not able to work together will not be granted any financial support from Western donor foundations.
c) To integrate into the existing structure of the network on RWE a discussion on fundamental questions in education, health and gender.
d) To create a method of exchanging opinions and research results on solutions of the crisis.
f) Invitation for a conference in Kiev on Climate change in September and against RWE in St.Petersburg on the 3rd November 2010.
g) Follow up of the seminars on Free Trade, Feminism and the Lisbon Treaty held at 5th ESF.

Conclusions: Assembly “Solidarity of the East and the West”

1.    With regard to the upcoming European mobilisations it was said that it is preferable to develop simultaneous activities against crises, poverty, unemployment in many countries during the time of the big demonstration on 29th September in Brussels. The slogan ”Human beings are more important than banks” was suggested as well as the integration of our struggle against racism and xenophobia.
2.    The open All-European Mobilizing Committee should support the co-operation and participation of CEE movements for the next EPAs and ESF, based upon the good experience with frequent Skype conferences
3.    The open-esf website should be renewed and continued with a better balanced participation of women and of CEE movements.
4.    Everyone is invited to participate in the network “Prague Spring II” and to integrate other issues into its work, e.g. women’s issues, sustainability or social issues.
5.    The next ESF should take place either in a CEE country or in one of the neighbouring countries like Austria.

Seminar on right wing extremism intiated by the ESF network Prague Spring II

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Anti imperialist Assembly
6th ESF Istanbul, 3rd  July 2010

The Anti-imperialist Assembly gathered on the occasion of European Social Forum, with 300 participants from Nepal, Greece, Turkey, Kurdistan, Palestine, Germany, Italy, Basque Country,   Britain, Croatia, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Denmark, Cyprus, Switzerland, Catalonia, Portugal, Norway and Belgium declares the following points:
-That without struggle against capitalism, a consistent fight against imperialism is not possible;  since imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist world system. We call all anti-imperialist forces to raise their efforts to topple the capitalist order which is in a deep and historical crisis. Socialism is the sole alternative against the capitalist system, and revolution is the only way to transform this system. “Another world” is socialism.
-That the social liberation struggles and the national liberation struggles of the oppressed nations are parts of the same front against imperialism. Chauvinistic nationalism is not anti-imperialist, on the contrary it divides and clashes the peoples and in this way it serves imperialism. Imperialism cannot be advocate of any oppressed nation, what it pursues is only to be the new dominator of those oppressed nations. Anti-imperialist struggle should be waged with an internationalist perspective to unite the peoples and oppressed nations of the world and regions.
-We declare our support for the national liberation struggles/resistances going on in Basque Country, Kurdistan, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and all others oppressed nations; and the social uprisings, revolutionary processes, worker strikes, popular resistances, youth movements and mass mobilizations going on in Greece, Nepal, India, Turkey, Italy, Croatia, Latin America and other countries. We strongly condemn all the attacks against these movements and external meddling in the internal affairs of individual countries. We condemn the Gaza Blockade of Israeli Zionism and call for the total boicott of the Israeli Racist State. We stress the vital importance of solidarity.
-That imperialism means poverty, violence and war to the women. Women’s liberation struggle is a part of the anti-imperialist struggle, and without the active participation of women’s masses the anti-imperialist front will be weak. The patriarchal system is basing itself on gender inequality, and a new society without exploitation can only be possible with full gender equality.
-The anti-imperialist unity can only be realised on a practical political basis. The peoples struggling against imperialism should come together. We call all progressive, democratic, patriotic and religious movements who fight against imperialism to form a broad anti-imperialist front. In a crucial moment of crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system, we call all the anti-imperialist forces to raise their efforts to develop revolutionary internationalist unity to fight imperialism internationally.
-We propose to the Final Assembly of the ESF;
-to decide a common day of action of the ESF to unite the labouring masses of Europe in such a deep moment of the crisis, to reject paying the bill of the capitalist crisis.
-to practise international solidarity against the war policy of the Turkish government, handling the Kurdish question with military measures instead of discussing it with popular representatives; and solidarity with the Kurdish politicians and freedom struggle activists, who were imprisoned depending on the so called ‘Anti-Terror’ Law and will be brought to their first trial on the 18th of November in Diyarbakir.

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Presented at the Assembly of social movements

Kurdish women protesting repression during ESF

An initiative should be formed as soon as possible by people working in the European Social Forum which will initiate the process of democratic and peaceful solutions to the Kurdish problem.

For the permanent solution of Kurdish problem, military and political operations should be stopped urgently,  the children and politicians whose number is around 2000 that have been imprisoned in the 14th April operations should be released as soon as possible.

The political leader of Kurds Mr Abdullah Öcalan should be included in the process of peace as addressee of the solution and in order to play his historical role, instead of being in solitary confinement in  İmrali, he should be under house arrest in an appropriate house.

A strong commission that consists of well-known women activists should be formed so as to contribute to active participation to the campaign of “Raise the freedom struggle and destroy the rape culture” that has been initiated by Kurdish Women Freedom Movement.

Within the slogan of “No to the 12th September Constitution”, a pluralist, libertarian, fair and equal constitution which will represent and enable  to all groups, minorities and peoples to express themselves freely must be formed.

A number of democratic, deterrent and affective actions must be planned and a local and international mixed commission must be formed against ecological and cultural genocide which is exposed against Kurdistan and all humanity.

The YİBO schools which are cultural and language assimilation tools and used to expose to be spies of states against the Kurdish children must be accepted as a humanity crime and and closed if possible, if not the initiatives in the national and international platforms should be formed for the discovery of the events.

ESF should form  a delegate of alive shields which consists of well-known Turkish intellectuals and writers, BDP MPs and mayors and this delegate should work in the Kurdish region in  order to prevent the lossed of lives in Kurdistan and Turkey

The execution policy of Iran  against the Kurdish women and all the other dynamic, democratic and peaceful  groups who are in favour of the change, should be condemned severely, and a call should be done that the executions are the crime of humanity and should be removed from the Iran constitution.

A commission for the investigation of the facts which consists of intellectuals, artists, NGOs and scientist should be formed and this commission should investigate the facts of the war that have been carried out in Kurdistan for 26 years and share it with the public.

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