Fridays For Future activists on hunger strike in Frankfurt

"We rather go hungry for a week now than accept that our livelihoods continue to be destroyed for profits, and that all, except a privileged minority, must fight for their survival."

Carlos (20) from Fridays For Future (FFF) Berlin and Sarah (19) from FFF Frankfurt am Main, have started a 7-day hunger strike today until the Global Climate Action Day next week on Friday, 29th November 2019.

A statement by the activists said the following:

“The climate crisis is continuing incessantly, the Amazon rainforest is still burning, and disillusionment and the feeling of not being able to change anything are spreading everywhere. These feelings are spreading among young people who have made an incredible difference in recent months, but whose voices are still not heard in politics.

For months now we have been on the streets and we will not stop claiming our future. That is why we are now going on a hunger strike. We make it clear that this is not just about "truancy", but that we are serious. We rather go hungry for a week now than accept that our livelihoods continue to be destroyed for profits, and that all, except a privileged minority, must fight for their survival.

The climate package is a farce

The climate package of the ‘grand coalition’ [in German: Große Koalition, consisting of a governing coalition between CDU, CSU and SPD] is a slap in the face to all 1.4 million people who, together with Fridays For Future, took to the streets on 20th September. Fridays For Future's demands are clear: to meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. Despite the fact that politicians have repressed what they decided back then - we have not, and we will not rest until our demands have been implemented and a future worth living is made possible for all of us.

International Solidarity

Fridays For Future is an international movement and solidarity is what makes us strong. From Rojava and Chile we have received news from the local FFF activists who are asking our movement here for solidarity. On one side, there is the group in Rojava, a society which has made ecology one of its basic principles and which is threatened in its life by the inhuman war of the Turkish regime with German weapons. On the other hand, the group in Chile, which participated in the uprisings from the beginning under the slogan "The social crisis is also an ecological crisis". For this they are opposed in the most brutal way by the military and police. With this action we want to show in practice our solidarity with these resistances; after all, the solution to the ecological crisis is social and international.

With 29th November there will be a lot in motion

29th November was chosen as the day for action because of the UN Climate Change Conference [COP25]. Due to the uprisings in Chile, this conference had to be postponed at short notice. The COP25 is not a normal meeting when activists from the social and ecological movement are swept off the streets with tear gas and rubber bullets in their host country, while movements around the world demand climate justice louder than ever before. With this temporary hunger strike, we want to shake people up, we want to take new steps in the fight for climate justice and make it clear to the leaders at the climate conference that our movement can no longer be ignored. On 29th November we will end our hunger strike, hoping to have shown a sign of solidarity and determination by then, which will motivate even more people to stand together for a social and ecological future in the cities, on the streets, in the mine and far beyond.”

The activists announced their concrete demands to the German government as follows:

1. Renegotiating the climate package and implementing the demands of Fridays For Future.

2. The right to strike politically for all.

3. Open condemnation of the Turkish war in Rojava, and of the counterinsurgency in Chile, as well as a comprehensive embargo on all arms exports to Turkey.

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