The International Day Against Police Violence was created through initiatives of C.O.B.P. (Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière) from Montreal and the anarchist collective Black Flag in Switzerland. The day is reminder of the brutal attack of the Swiss police on two children on March 15, 1996. The fact that this day has been celebrated internationally in many parts of the world since 1997 is especially relevant in light of the increasing transnational networking of police strategies and technologies. While a police-critical view from a nation state perspective is increasingly finding its way into public discourse, the global interconnections of militarization and police practices are receiving less attention. These include police missions, this is, the deployment of police officers, long-since an essential part of foreign policy and security policy interventions by the United Nations or the European Union. As allegedly “civil” forces, they are supposed to see to the advisement and training of security forces and to ensure more safety and stability through reforms of the security institutions. In doing so, counterinsurgency, the suppression of peaceful protests, the strengthening of already armed groups and state violence on behalf of the state’s own neocolonial interests such as combatting migration are accepted/used.
In light of this, it is especially necessary on the International Day Against Police Violence to point out the colonialism and inherent violence of global policing. Frantz Fanton already wrote about how the brutal practices of the military and the police blurred in the colonies. The militarization of the police accompanying international police deployments continues this dynamic but also brings it back to the former centers of colonialism where the idea of a “civil” police prevails who are responsible for protecting the citizens. In the 1960s, the Black Panthers already provided a central example of how the police also use forms of colonial violence against citizens in the former colonial-imperialistic metropolises. Through racist othering, according to their analysis, citizens are constructed as dangerous and inferior and thus marked as colonial subjects. The borders between police “civil” and military force blur just like the borders between (neo)colonial periphery and metropolises.
Since 1990, more than 250 racialized people have died in police custody in Germany. According to Death in Custody, at least 20 people in Germany were killed by racist police violence last year. These include Gizo Brigvadze, Ertekin Özkan, Vitali Novacov, Denys P., Mamadou “Johnson” B. and Ibrahima Barry this year. Alongside them there are many other people whose names we do not know as well as others who are unreported cases.
A memorial on Oranienplatz in Berlin has served as a reminder of them since 2020. On the International Day Against Police Violence, we remember the victims, survivors and relatives of those who have experience police violence. It is also a day for the struggle against police violence is honored and on which we remind ourselves that a world without police is possible.
