Category: News

A team of Syrian refugees in Berlin is building an app to help solve the problem of German paperwork. And it’s not just for refugees – all new arrivals in Germany will benefit from the app, which they’ve called Bureacrazy.

The app will allow a user to enter data in their own language, and prints out forms in German. It also gives tips on required documents and office locations.

It’s amazing no one thought to solve this common problem before. Even more amazing is that the Bureaucrazy team had no software development background before they arrived in Germany.

The app’s creators are Ghaith Zamrik, Munzer Khatt ab, Omar Alshafai and Salim Mohammad, all from Syria. They have arrived in Berlin over the past year after fleeing the war in Syria, and have been living in camps in sports halls and hotels across the city.

As they told Radio Spaetkauf recently:

“We started learning coding here in Berlin with the REDI School of Digital Integration. The best way to learn code is to start building an application,” Ghaith said.

In order to launch Bureaucrazy by January 1, the team now needs more support from professional coders and financial backers. You can contact them through their Facebook page.

Listen to their interview on Radio Spaetkauf here.

• By Joel Dullroy, Radio Spaetkauf

Radio Spaetkauf will be recording live at the Mobile Kino Weekender on July 31. Some of our guests will be Syrian refugees who are now living in Berlin. In order to bring them to the festival, we have to cover some costs.

Can you donate €40 to help bring a refugee to the Weekender? After all, festivals should be for all Berliners!

If you can donate, please send us an e-mail to hallo@radiospaetkauf.com. We’ll get back to you with some payment details shortly.

Thanks for your support, and see you at the Weekender!

By Joel Dullroy, Radio Spaetkauf

A British investment company is behind the escalating conflict between Berlin’s former squatter community and the city’s police, resulting in illegal evictions, demonstrations and car burnings.

Tensions have flared in recent months between police and the residents of Rigaer Straße 94, a former squat in the district of Friedrichshain. The building is owned by Lafone Investments Limited, a one pound company with registered offices in London.

More than 300 police raided the property on June 22 and evicted some of the tenants, including a bar called Kadterschmeide run by a community association. They were acting on a request by Lafone Investments Limited, which sought police protection for builders hired to renovate the property.

On Wednesday July 13 a Berlin court found the eviction was unlawful. There was no official eviction order in place to justify the removal of the tenants and their property. The police had effectively participated in an illegal property invasion on behalf of a foreign investor.

The court decision followed a fiery weekend of demonstrations and retaliatory car burnings in Berlin. On Saturday July 9 an estimated 3500 people marched through Friedrichshain demanding an end to police actions against Rigaer Staße residents. Around 1800 riot police followed the demonstrators and kettled them on Warschauer Brücke with a water cannon truck positioned at one end, and used tear gas on the crowds. Some demonstrators set off flares and threw cobblestones at the police.

An official statement from the police claimed 123 officers were injured, although only one required hospitalization. The police definition of officer injury can include heat stress and reaction to tear gas. There were eleven car burning reported across Berlin on the same evening. Car burnings have long been used as an anti-gentrification tactic by the so-called autonomous scene. They have flared again in recent months in retaliation against police actions in Friedrichshain.

Opposition politicians in Berlin have critized the city’s police minister, Frank Henkel from the CDU, who ordered the crackdown on Rigaer Straße and the autonomous scene. Rather than fostering peace, Mr. Henkel and his police department now stand accused of fermenting conflict. Following the court order, Mr. Henkel now appears to have supported an unlawful eviction on behalf of the property owner.

However, the true identity of the building owner remains unclear. The property was purchased in 2014 by Lafone Investments Limited. Company registration documents state that company’s single one pound share is held by Mr. John Dewhurst, a London-based lawyer. He was also listed as the sole company director until July 8, when he removed himself from the position. His name appears in the Panama Papers as a shareholder of Platinum Investment International Corporation, a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Mr. Dewhurst has told German media that he is not the real owner of the company or building, but merely acting on behalf of the anonymous owner. In Berlin, the owner is represented by Hausverwaltung Centurius, a building management company.

Although Rigaer Straße 94 is often reported to be a squat, it is in fact a normal and legally occupied residential building. The property was originally squatted in 1990, but the residents signed contracts to rent their apartments in 1992 with the then-owner, a public housing company. The building was sold to a private owner in 2000, and again in 2014 to Lafone Investments Limited. In 2015 the property’s new owner began attempting to evict the tenants, sparking the current conflicts.

For more background to the Rigaer Straße police raids, listen to Radio Spaetkauf’s February podcast on which we interview journalist John Riceberg: