Stop the genocide in Gaza! Stop police violence against anti-war students!

On Tuesday, the academic group International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at Humboldt University Berlin presented its electoral declaration for the upcoming student parliamentary elections.

The elections of June 18 and 19 will take place this year in extraordinary conditions. As opponents of the genocide in Gaza are repressed by brutal police violence and prosecuted at the instigation of the leadership, university president Julia von Blumenthal and the Berlin Senate (state executive) are considering strengthen the law on higher education, which would allow students to express their opinions. critical anti-war views be suppressed on a political basis.

Establishment politicians and the media have responded to an open letter from hundreds of teachers condemning the violent dispersal of a protest camp at Berlin’s Freie Universität and defending students’ freedom of speech and assembly through a vicious smear campaign. At the same time, university campuses across Europe are being occupied by students to oppose the Israeli attack on Rafah and demand a halt to all Western arms deliveries.

The fight that the IYSSE has been waging for ten years against the conformism imposed in universities therefore takes on immense importance. We have exposed the militarist forces behind the attempt to attack the democratic rights of students and transform German universities into training schools for German imperialism. To end the genocide in Gaza and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine, the entire working class must be mobilized on the basis of an international, socialist program against war and capitalism.

Below appears the statement of the IYSSE electoral list, which will be printed in the student elections brochure. Take part in our election campaign and register as an active supporter at iysse.de/mitmachen.

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Stop the genocide in Gaza!

Stop police violence against anti-war students!

We are running in the Student Parliament (StuPa) elections to oppose police violence against students who express critical views against the war and media smears against professors. We will not allow opponents of the war to be silenced at Humboldt University and turned into a training school for German militarism. It is not only our right, but also our historic duty to denounce the terrible genocide in Gaza, supported in all respects by the German government.

This war is not aimed at “protecting the lives of Jews”, but purely economic interests. The same powers that arm Israel are working in concert with anti-Semites and Nazi believers in Ukraine to defeat Russia militarily. In their struggle for world hegemony, they are even ready to accept nuclear war.

Scholarship instead of war propaganda!

In order to make Germany “ready for war”, the entire society was militarized and budgets for education, health and housing were cut. Humboldt University plays a central role in ideological preparations for war. While the university leadership defames peaceful students as “anti-Semitic” for protesting the genocide, it has for years supported far-right professor Baberowski, who claims that Hitler was not “not vicious” and systematically trivializes the Holocaust.

At StuPa, we have been fighting for 10 years against this war propaganda and attacks on the democratic rights of students. Given the enormous escalation of the conflict between the militarism of the university leadership and the students, this work is of crucial importance. Only with a strong IYSSE at StuPa will we be able to repel the attacks from the university management!

For a socialist perspective against fascism and war!

We, the students, cannot win alone. The only social force capable of ending genocide and defending democratic rights is the international working class, the vast majority that creates all of society’s wealth. As the youth organization of the Fourth International, we stand for the unification of workers across all national, religious and ethnic boundaries in the fight against capitalism and war.

The brutal violence against opponents of the war shows that appealing to the government is futile. A world war can only be avoided if capitalism is overthrown and replaced by a socialist society in which the needs of workers come before the interests of profit. Join the IYSSE and follow us on instagram.com/iysse.de