Immediate release of the imprisoned refugee activists - abolish all deportation prisons!

4 participants oft he Vienna refugee protests are in deportation prison since 12th of January. The police, following an anonymous call of racist neighbours, had entered by force into a univerity room being used by students. Several people with precarious residence status who had been there were arrested, 4 of them were brought to the police detention center at Hernalser Gürtel and taken in deportation custody.

3 of the prisoners are in urgent threat of deportation to Pakistan, one algerian citizen is threatened of eportation to Hungary based on the "Dublin I"-convention.

This police operation and the imprisonment of 4 refugee activists is, on the one hand, part of the daily racist conditions in Austria. On the other hand, the state power is searching for intimidation and repression against a movement of historical dimension in which refugees, together with their supporters, have been struggling for 2 months without interruption against the injustice of Austrian asylum- and migration policies and have been demanding their fundamental rights for free, humane living conditions. The demands of the refugee protests, which, after the march from Traiskirchen to Vienna and the protest camp at Sigmund Freud Park, have come to a new climax with the enduring hunger strike inside Votiv church, have not been fulfilled until today. The only concrete answer the Austrian state has to offer so far, besides talks without any result, is repression: First the violent eviction and destruction oft he protest camp, now deportation prison and deportation threat against protesting refugees.

The prisoners are resisting - let's not leave them alone! 3 of the imprisoned activists oft he refugee protests, together with 2 other deportation prisoners, have gone on hunger strike and demand their immediate release. Many times, refugees in Austria have been resisting against the inhuman conditions of deportations, deportation prisons and lagers by doing hunger strikes, protests and many forms of active resistance - most times without any public attention. The enduring protests of refugees in the heart of Vienna are challenging us to stand up together to break this silence by showing active solidarity with the prisoners and with all protesting refugees who are staying until today inside Votiv church and other places of Vienna to wait for their demands being fulfilled.

Let's fight together fort he immediate release of our friends from prison! We'll carry on together! No one must be deported or left behind in prison!

Let's make pressure against the austrian authorities until all are free and the demands oft he refugees are fulfilled!