Following a period of relative and alleged calmness, during the last months three searches throughout Northern Germany and the entire country resp. based on § 129 a Criminal Law (constitution of a terrorist organisation) against left-wing activists and structures have taken place.
On May 9th 2007, 40 objects and in total 18 suspects and so-called “witnesses” were affected by a search wave in the context of mobilisation against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. According to the federal prosecution, they are supposed to have constituted a terrorist organisation to the end of implementing a militant campaign against the G8 summit. Four weeks later, on June 13th, another search action based on §129a against persons from Bad Oldesloe, Hamburg and Berlin took place. The suspects are charged with participation in anti-militarist attacks. Finally, on July 31st four persons have been arrested in Berlin because of alleged membership in the “mg” (militant group). Merely one suspect’s warrant of arrest has at least temporarily been overruled, not least due to great public pressure. The remaining three persons are still in the clink, exposed to special conditions of custody.
„We have shot into the bush, and now we’ll see what or who is moving there” (Quotation of an investigator regarding the searches of May 9th, 2007)
Although the proceedings are targeting different political connections, the arbitrariness of the investigations clarifies that the state power is pursuing a comprehensive goal: the illumination and criminalisation of left structures, to the end of smashing them.
A total disclosure of the suspects’ as well as co-suspects’, witnesses’ and lawyers’ private sphere towards state institutions is resulting from the immense extent of the realised surveillance and search measures. Furthermore, substitution of confiscated property and necessary utilisation of legal support cause considerable financial hardship. Thus, enforced standstill and passivity on part of the suspects are being attempted.
Even though 95% of proceedings under §129a are dismissed prematurely, yet state repression results in preventing the persons concerned and their political environment from their original intention: to make revolution!
That’s gonna be fun…
The extension of the control apparatus utilising ever increasing technical opportunities has been intensified for years. A few catchwords in this context are: online surveillance, provisional data storage, utilisation of the toll system for the creation of databases or the storage of biometrical data on identification documents. The general security debate includes domestic operation of the Federal Armed Forces as well as discussions concerning the shooting down of civil airplanes and the targeted killing of so-called “terrorists”. These developments are accompanied by a substantial extension of police competences and an abolishment of the division between the secret service and the police – therefore, police investigations nowadays are based increasingly on findings of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The lessons from National Socialism which resulted in the separation of these institutions don’t matter anymore.
In order to legitimate the extension of the so-called „preventive state“ and the cutback of civil rights, a permanent threat is being constructed. A policy utilizing the fear of terror, staged by – among other things – sensational media campaigns presenting the extent of the menace in ever increasing superlatives, is supposed to be the hotbed for the readiness to change fundamental rights.
Where does this fear come from?
The extension of the modern security state is the reaction to a world-wide culmination of social conflicts. Reinforced by the enforced opening of less-developed markets by and for the leading industrialised nations, increasing competition pressure coerces people into even more dire poverty. As regional distribution conflicts are escalating, more and more people are seeking refuge in the countries of the originators. Simultaneously, Germany gains a geo-political power position in the struggle for markets and resources in the context of her EU policy. But also domestically, distribution inequity is coming to a head: Due to increasing economic competition, capitalism isn’t inclined to maintain minimal revenue participation of wage dependants anymore. The social components of the civil state are being exchanged for guiding ideas of an obvious authoritarian formation whose contents are predominantly accepted and internalised willingly by the society.
Ideological crime prevention is a fundamental element of this formation. Therefore, in the beginning of the 1990s, a debate on the police’s “zero tolerance” concepts has been initiated, claiming supposed or factual socially deviating behaviour to be the basis of increasing incidence of crime. Consistently, on the local level security and cleanliness programmes were realised, stigmatising and criminalising graffiti sprayers, homeless people and others. Town development approaches follow the idea of adjusting city centre areas as to-be-pacified cores of the metropolises by targeting measures in order to dislodge people to the urban periphery who don’t fit into the pattern of “blameless citizens”.
We want the whole bakery!
The recent culmination of the social situation is not a crisis of capitalism, but is tantamount to the system; it’s system-immanent. Accordingly, the rearmament of the state’s security apparatus serves as general riot prevention but primarily to maintain and secure economic power relations. Therefore, state repression is a safeguarding pillar of capitalism. The strike against the left serves to criminalise a movement consequently rejecting and fighting the development outlined above. But the degree of state repressive action is not determined by supposed or factual “jeopardy” from the left, but the fact of mere existence of left resistance structures is the repression institutions’motivation to attack with all means at their disposition.
We haven’t come to complain. Since wherever people are fighting the prevailing order, state repression will be the answer.
We want to overcome the conditions persistently bringing about the capitalist normality. We consider capitalism and its principle of total economisation of the living space as hostile to humans – as our enemy. Our utopia consists of a human and solidarity-based society and of all people’s freedom from exploitation and oppression. Our outlook is one of emancipatory, political and social movements locally and globally which are solidarily and collectively rejecting consequently capitalist conditions and put up resistance against them. Our dealing with state repression has to be as collective and solidary as our fight for liberation is to be fought. Only together we are able to response to and fight back attacks against the radical left.
The demonstration on 12/15 in Hamburg shall show that the state’s calculation of criminalisation, intimidation and division is bound to fail. Join the demonstration against repression and security state! Let’s show them also on the streets that we can make the circumstances dance!
Axel, Florian und Oliver have to get out!
Immediate dismissal of all proceedings!
Freedom for our imprisoned comrades!
For world-wide social revolution!
Demo Alliance Hamburg
Info:
http://www.antirepressionskampagne-hamburg.tk/
http://regierung-stuerzen.de
Contact:
ark-hamburg@riseup.net
Source: email