In the German state of Bavaria, dozens of people are in 'preventive detention' because they might otherwise engage in climate protests, specifically around the car industry exposition IAA in Munich.
Apparently possible for a month there...
https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2023-09/letz...
This is specifically Bavaria. They also recently found out that their vice president has a past as a Nazi and the reaction of their president was essentially "Oh no. Anyway...". So, yeah, if you considered visiting the Oktoberfest, maybe reconsider.
Eh, I don't expect random tourists to be locked up by the fascists, nor do I necessarily expect the not-quite-fascists to distance themselves from the fascists, just from losses in the tourism industry.
I'm mostly just saying, there's tons of places you could be traveling to and "drinking beer with fascists" isn't quite as attractive anymore.
Kind of. Iirc it's a very controversial practice and whenever the police pulls it out in a public case it gets protested again (for good reason). Also, even if the practice is legal right now, there's a lot of limitations to it. Obviously it's nudging the ethical boundaries of police work either way.
Maybe they should arrest everyone that might protest against this before they arrest the other people that might protest against climate change. But then people might protest against that too. I guess everyone is under arrest! You're all under arrest. Get in the hole!
I can't read German, but we have a similar legal system in the Netherlands.
Most likely, these people committed some crime during a previous protest, such as illegally entering private property or vandalism. Often they will get sentences that are conditional.
If there is evidence to believe they are conspiring to commit a similar illegal act, then the conditional part of the sentence gets triggered.
Nope, it's actually only that the police has reason to believe that they might commit a crime.
No need for them to be prior offenders or anything. The police can arrest anyone at any time if they believe you might commit a crime. And even comparatively minor things like blocking traffic counts.
But this is in fact how the police argues. Climate protests are terror attacks (since they disrupt traffic) and therefore this is justified.
Pretty sure the Bundesverfassungsgericht (basically our supreme court) will shut this practice down – just like all the other times Bavarian laws have been ruled unconstitutional – but Bavaria doesn't care. They scrap the law and replace it with a similar unconstitutional version and wait 2 years until the Bundesverfassungsgericht rules it unconstitutional and so on.
Last generation: 27 climate demonstrators in Bavaria were preventively imprisoned
In the run-up to the IAA motor show, the police in Bavaria took activists from the last generation into so-called preventative detention. The procedure is very controversial.
By Kai Biermann
September 2, 2023, 4:14 pm
According to Last Generation, Bavarian authorities have currently put a total of 27 supporters of the group in prison without trial or verdict. This means that the number of activists in preventive detention has almost doubled, the group writes in a statement. They are therefore being held in the Stadelheim and Memmingen correctional facilities.
A large number of them were apparently taken into custody in connection with the IAA International Motor Show, which is scheduled to take place in Munich from September 5th to 10th. The last generation had announced protests against the fair. According to Last Generation, at least 16 of those affected are in custody until September 10th.
Eleven more are expected to serve longer sentences. According to Munich police, ten of them were taken into custody during a blockade on Friday. The Munich district court then ordered that they remain in prison until September 30th.
Nowhere as long as in Bavaria
Legally, this police approach is called preventive detention because it is not detention for a crime that has been committed. The police laws of the different states allow this for different lengths of time. In Bavaria, up to one month in prison is permitted, which may be extended by a judge for a maximum of another month. In other federal states, however, it is usually only a few days.
The so-called preventive or preventive detention is very controversial. The relevant laws were originally created to prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks. However, this form of detention is now also permitted in the case of the “imminent commission or continuation of an administrative offense of considerable importance for the general public,” as the Bavarian police law states. Lawsuits against this have so far been rejected in Bavaria. However, a final clarification about the legality of this approach is still pending.
This form of deprivation of liberty is all the more problematic because the protesters will not face imprisonment if they are convicted for a blockade. The corresponding procedures regularly only end with fines.
Carla Rochel, the spokesperson for the Last Generation, writes in the statement: "The question we as a society have to ask ourselves at this moment is: Do we think it's okay that protest for all of our basic right to life means prison instead of climate protection is answered?"
Oh, look those of us that were pointing out the risk of abuse of all those high-overreach laws passed in the aftermath of 9/11 during peak "terrorist scare" (even though more people died from falling in their bathtubs than from terrorist attacks) are once again proven right.
To be fair, in this case 16 people are already free since yesterday. The other 9 have been taken into custody while demonstrating. Not because of the demonstrating itself, but for various reasons, ranging from resistance against the police to cases where they technically endangered someones live by blocking emergency vehicles. They will be in jail for another 19 days. Another reason for longer jail sentences are them being impossible to learn, aka. not changing behaviour from previous incidents.
As much as Germany denies it, it has been proven in the last 10 or so years that they really loved their nazi days. France seems to also love having been under nazi occupation too, and they seem to have a similar anti-environmentalist attitude.
The Germans have a history of these things, they try to pretend it's all in the past but here they are right back to their old ways. It's unacceptable for anyone to be detained in this way, period.
Please educate yourself:
There are rightwing tendencies even in your country, but they're coloured differently.
If you'd take a closer look at world politics you'd find that there is an alarming trend concerning exactly this.
Best example would be Italy - they've just elected a right-wing party and all hells breaking loose as they've started restructuring the social security system over there, leaving many, many families moneyless. Without any warning in advance. And that's just the start.
China is still on with their genocide - the Uigur must die it seems, no matter what. There's still concentration camps.
I could go on for hours.
But yeah. You're right. Us Germans are notorious and blind towards our history.
It’s absolutely better to let people be free and do whatever they want, than to apprehend them ahead of time when they’re suspected of planning to carry out a crime.
Just imagine if the people who carried out the 11th September attack had been caught in the planning stage? Then tomorrow would just be a normal day instead of a sad day of remembrance.
No, but we have this thing called the 6th amendment that lays out the minimum requirements for prosecution. (known as due process). Pre-crime clearly breaks those minimums.