Mon, 29 Oct 2007
Only three days left ...
Citizens of Germany have only three days left if they want to apply for a new travel passport that does not include its owner's fingerprints. From the 1st of November on German citizens who apply for a new travel passport will have to provide their fingerprints so they can be included in the passport's biometric section. Up until now, fingerprinting was a treatement reserved for those user reasonable suspicion of a crime.
A new travel passport can be applied for at any time, whether the old one is expired or not. Your new passport will be valid for 10 years if you are 26 or older, otherwise it will be valid for only five years. A new passport costs 59,00 Euro respectively 37,50 Euro for those under 26 years.
I for one do not welcome this further erosion of privacy so I got myself a new passport just in time. Guess I'll have to do a lot of travelling in the next 10 years ...
Posted at: 16:40 in /english/politics
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Mon, 07 May 2007
Chère racaille
Unfortunatelly, Mr Sarkozy winnig these elections does not come as a total surprise. Still it is not something you have to passively accept. You still have a democracy. What is needed now is a strong and watchful opposition, in and outside the parliaments. Remain alert, protect and defend your République and the rights its residents have! We're with you!
Best,
Meike
Posted at: 09:56 in /english/politics
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Tue, 30 Jan 2007
They're at it again
(Almost all links in this text lead to German sources. Sorry, but this is a local topic and there aren't any English sources.)
Unfortunately, Hildesheim is home to some rather prominent figures of the German neo-nazi scene. One of them has now registered for a protest march through Hildesheim on the 24 February 2007.
The reason for this is, that an other neo-nazi event, that had been disguised as a "birthday party", but was in fact a propaganda event featuring talks by "contemporary witnesses" and "an evening of ballads" and was arranged by "National Forces of Hildesheim and the Association of German Women" had been prevented by the Hildesheim police.
As a reaction to this, the aforementioned gentleman has now registered for a demonstration with the Hildesheim city council. (In Germany you need to register demonstrations.) Official head of the whole thing is this other gentleman, who has a history of trying to organise nazi demonstrations. He occasionally does so in Leipzig, where he tries to organise such demonstrations about twice a year. Their attendance is dropping though and they are usually met with about ten times as many counter demonstrators and thus have to be ended prematurely, exposing them as the unwanted and ridiculous farces they really are.
However, the fact that people still try to register demonstrations such as this one is worrying. And the fact that this one is meant to be in the town I live in makes me pretty angry. Fortunately the demonstration is met with broad opposition. An alliance has been formed, consisting of the German adult education centre of Hildesheim (VHS), the Federation of German Trade Unions (DGB), Verdi, our public services union, Attac, the Antifa, the refugee council of Lower Saxony and the political parties with the Hildesheim Greens as the most active part at the moment. It is good to see, that such neo-nazi endeavours are met with such a broad opposition, and that this opposition does not only originate from the "usual suspects", but from the centre of society. (The VHS for example is usually a non-political organisation, and seeing them engage in such an alliance and even hosting its meetings is pretty cool!)
It's not sure yet, whether the demonstration will be approved. It probably will, but with a bunch of extra conditions. If it is approved, it is even more important to meet it with the resistance it deserves! So, if you are living near Hildesheim, watch this space for announcements of the planned counter measures.
Posted at: 10:36 in /english/politics
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Fri, 03 Feb 2006
Some work on gender and FLOSS
This also coincides nicely with a mail I got at about the same time from the FLOSSPOLS Project. They are organising a workshop on gender and FLOSS in Cambridge next weekend and invited me to participate. I am very much looking forward to this! Not only because it's an interesting topic, but also because I am finally going to personally meet some very interesting women, who I've only virtually "talked" to or only read about until now.
Also, this happens at just the right time, since I have recently begun to grow a bit bored by the whole Women and FLOSS Issue and it's ever-repreating discussions. I feel that these events give me back some of the momentum I've lost over the last months. Raising the number of women in FLOSS is a complex, longsome and sometimes even tedious business and it's good to get a little push from time to time.
PS: Congrats, honey! ;-)
Posted at: 14:08 in /english/politics
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