MORE THAN 35,000 OPPOSED THE FOUNDING CONFERENCE OF AFD YOUTH PARTY ~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~ Tens of thousands of people arrived in Gießen, Germany as part of a united front against the formation of a far-right youth party, relaunched by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 29 November. Political actions organised by the antifascist alliance Widersetzen saw multiple highways and roads in the district of Hessen blocked by activists. Photo: Wiederzetzen Around 800 people attended the launch of the youth party Generation Deutschland, an event that was postponed for more than two hours as a result of anti-fascists’ disruption. German police responded with heavy repression including pepper spray, rushing protesters with baton charges, and water cannons from police tanks, causing multiple injuries. Photo: Mouafak Mahmalji “Thank you for standing firm despite the massive police violence,” Widersetzen said after the event. “The scale is shocking and aligns with the decisions of the city of Gießen. Anyone who tries by all means to ban protest is willingly doing the dirty work for fascism.” This was the AfD’s second attempt to launch a youth party, after its predecessor Junge Alternative (JA) became uncontrollable, was classified as an extremist organisation by domestic intelligence and disbanded by its parent party last March. With Generation Deutschland, membership in the parent party is now mandatory and the AfD is hoping it can keep it in line. Photo: Wiederzetzen However, the current reboot appears to follow directly in the former youth party’s tragic fascist footsteps with the election of Jean-Pascal Hohm as chairman, himself classified as a right-wing extremist. “Germany is not lost yet,” he said after becoming the leader. “We will argue decisively, for a real migration turnaround that ensures that Germany remains the country and the homeland of the Germans.” Hohm himself has previously been part of the far-right Identitarian Movement and Pegida, as well as a proponent of conspiracy theories including ‘population exchange’ and the resistance the medical-led preventions of Covid-19. Photo: Mouafak Mahmalji The last elections in Germany saw the AfD gain 20.8% of the total vote and it is now the second largest part in Germany, gaining more than 69 seats, and surpassing the power of the former government run by Social Democrat Party (SPD) for the first time in its history. This was seen widely as a political disaster, considering the leading Christian Democrat Union (CDU) have become increasingly extreme. This was shown in January, after a lethal stabbing committed by Enamullah Omarzai, an Afghan asylum seeker with untreated schizophrenia. Before the investigation had begun, CDU and AfD joined forces for the first time to pass legislation stopping arrivals of all refugees on Germany’s borders. In contrast, those who requested to the court that Enamullah receive psychiatric support instead of imprisonment were those who survived his attack. What ‘generation Antifa’ have proved on the streets of Gießen is that the youth are not so easily manipulated to fight a cause only beneficial to billionaires. “It continues,” Widersetzen writes in the aftermath, “because today was not the first day: we struggle in everyday life and remain uncomfortable. We have the hope that the new AfD youth can count on our protests.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: Mouafak Mahmalji The post Clashes at “Generation Deutschland” blockades appeared first on Freedom News.

OVER 120 DEAD IN BRAZIL’S DEADLIEST FAVELA RAID IN DECADES ~ Matheus Fonseca ~ At dawn on 28 October, over 2,500 policemen overran the favelas of Penha and Alemão in Rio de Janeiro. They had a warrant to arrest hundreds of individuals linked to Comando Vermelho, the biggest drug trafficking militia active in Brazil, but as soon as they made contact with the gang members, the shootouts started. Police ran belligerents into planned ambushes, and it was reported that militias used suicide drones. Until now there is no confirmation that every casualty was involved in organised crime, nor is it known how many were summarily killed. No video footage has been published. Police may have abandoned a number of corpses found in nearby woods which have been recovered by local residents. According to media, some bodies have what seem to be torture marks and knife cuts. The favelas—slang for ghetto or slum—are overpopulated and lack planning, electricity and water supply, sewage system and proper communication systems. In these districts, hundreds of militia members oppress the working people with extortion, terror campaigns, child soldier recruitment, rape, torture and kangaroo courts. At the UN, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that that, for decades, “the high level of killings associated with the police in Brazil has been normalised”, with thousands of black youths from impoverished areas being killed by police every year in the country. He called on Brazil “to end a system that perpetuates racism, discrimination and injustice”. But anarchists in Brazil described the raids as a ‘social hygiene measure’ in the favelas, where every regime since colonial times has maintained poverty and violence.The Organização Socialista Libertária added that “The criminal overlords that control the drug and weapon trafficking in the borders—with police participation—will not be bothered or put out of business” by the raid, especially when “at this moment in time the state has found that the main protagonists in crime are from the upper classes”. It pointed out that past operations have found several multi-millionaire companies related to slush funds in São Paulo city involved in organised crime, and others have found tons of cocaine trafficked in Santos bay. The post Rio police massacre: “The criminal overlords are from the upper classes” appeared first on Freedom News.