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[Gipfelsoli Infogruppe] Legal Update Heiligendamm May 13th
17.04.2007: police actions against the “walk by the fence” on the 15th of April. Participants: at least 220 (300 according to the media) “Security Forces”: two water police boats, one helicopter, two-hundred riot cops, one special arrest squad, and many, many more…
18.04.2007: repression and resistance to G8. The attack on the “Hanse-Gate” office building in Hamburg was related to the G8-summit in Heiligendamm. A Hamburg newspaper received a letter from the “Autonomous Anticapitalist Groups” criticising companies located in the building, and describing the action as “Warm-up” for the summit. On Saturday the 14th of April, persons unknown smashed windows in the building and threw paint bombs, causing damage of several tens of thousands of Euros.
19.04.2007: “Zero-Tolerance against summit hooligans”. Hamburg’s police chief Janosch has said that he wants to “fish out” the leaders of riots already before they reach Heiligendamm. The end of May will be exciting Hamburg: besides the summit protests, there will be the ASEM conference, and the opening of the contested Wasserturm-Hotel.
19.04.2007: cops raid house project in Potsdam in search of anti-G8 banner. Some 50 cops stormed a house project in Potsdam, basing their action on a court order to impound a banner that had hung off the house. The banner, it was claimed, constituted an incitement to criminal activity.
24.04.2007: careless talk costs lives! Total surveillance in Hamburg: media are being asked not to report militant actions around the G8 summit; an info-hotline for denunciations has been set up; mobile phones are being located, phones tapped, cars traced. Interior minister Nagel: we will soon see results.
28.04.2007: G8 demo in Berlin – police accused of violence. Police are accused of beating demonstrators and intentionally damaging the sound car’s equipment. According to the police, the demonstrators wilfully changed their route, so the police had to respond.
29.04.2007: Militant G8 critics to be dealt with harshly. Regional officials in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are threatening militant summit critics with speedy trials if they commit crimes. Foreign violent protesters would be faced with fines from 150 to 2000 Euro, according to a list of punishments developed for the football world cup in 2006. At the same time, lawyers are preparing to support G8 critics for free, fearing infringements of their basic rights. There will be a legal emergency service in place.
30.04.2007: 30 people barred from visiting the fence. The police have already barred 30 people from getting to the fence around the summit location, but now, says Abramovski, they have stopped counting. Around the fence, the mood is decidedly “Big Brother”, with video vans patrolling constantly. A resident: I was there when they built the wall. I remember.
30.04.2007: A few weeks ago, interior security tried to recruit a teenager in Lueneburg as an informer. They tried to gain information about the left scene and activities in the town.
01.05.2007: undercover cops get their own special unit. Although it’s no news that hundreds of undercover cops prowl the streets of Berlin on the first of May, now they finally get their own special unit: “Intelligence + Intervention”. The special unit is likely to be deployed in Heiligendamm, so people are working on identifying them in advance.
04.05.2007: Kavala advertising on TV on radio against protests. The police have been warning of “troublemakers” since their first public event around Heiligendamm. Now they’re going to the next level, using radio and TV advertisements. Also on tour: the police’s “Infomobil”
05.05.2007: G8: shopkeepers ought to secure their stores. Expecting riots during the main demonstration in Rostock, the police has warned shopkeepers to prepare for the riots by securing their stores.
05.05.2007: Army deployment during G8 summit. While soldiers will not be taking offensive actions during the summit, they retain the right to defend themselves against crimes against the army, as well as the right to self-defence.
06.05.2007: Utrecht/Netherlands: 4 people still in jail after detention of 100 bicycle demonstrators. Press release of the bike caravan info-bureau in Rostock (excerpts) Yesterday, 100 participants in a bike demo in Utrecht were arrested and kept into the night in terrible conditions for not cycling on the bike lane. 4 of them remain in jail today.
06.05.2007: Bad Doberan to be shut off? Signs are intensifying that the town of Bad Doberan will experience severe inconveniences during the summit: inhabitants will have to carry ID on them at all times. People not resident in Bad Doberan will need to carry letters from their employers proving their need to be there. Security experts point out that a strong security concept for the summit would be impossible without shutting off Bad Doberan.
07.05.2007: RAF-debate – internal security service warns of new left-wing terror. Baden-Wuerttemberg’s internal security has warned that left-wing terrorism could experience a renaissance in Germany. Militant groups are said to increasingly iconise old members of the Red Army Faction, and increasingly refer to their ideas in a positive way, for example to a letter written by ex-RAF member Christian Klar.
07.05.2007: G8 police chief in a good mood. Abramovski, leader of the police’s special “Kavala” unit set up to police the 2007 G8 summit assesses their work over the last two years positively. During the summit he will have 580 officers working directly under him, and command some 16000 officers, at the cost of 100 million Euros. Together with colleagues from abroad, Abramovski will have to police tens of thousands of protesters, a few hundred who will come with less than peaceful intentions, and possibly individuals or small groups treated by the police under the heading “international terrorism”.
08.05.2007: Police wants hotel guests’ particulars. The police is demanding that particulars of hotel guests staying in and around Heiligendamm should be handed over to them in advance. The police are pressuring proprietors, threatening them with hassle if they do not cooperate.
09.05.2007: Fasten your seatbelts! On the 9th of May, Germany’s federal police (BKA) raided 40 locations across the country. 900 officers were deployed to intimidate individuals and left projects. Investigations are being conducted under ยง129a, concerning the “creation of a terrorist organisation aiming to prevent to the G8 summit”. The background to the raids are actions by militant groups against state and commercial property. Only 2% of investigations conducted under this anti-terror law lead to convictions. The prosecution itself admits that the raids were not intended to prevent any concrete attacks, but simply to gather information.
10.05.2007: reintroduction of border controls for the G8 summit. Germany’s interior minister has decided that border controls will be re-imposed at Germany’s borders with Schengen countries for the duration of and prior to the summit, in order to prevent potentially criminal and violent protesters from entering the country.
10.05.2007: Leipzig: police brutality. A spontaneous demonstration in Leipzig against the arbitrary measures against left structures on 9.5.2007 was massively attacked by police.
11.05.2007: up to ten days preventive detention; regional government sets up mass prisons. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s interior minister pointed out that it was possible in his state to detain potential troublemakers for up to ten days. Later, a spokeswoman for the minister added that the state would certainly make full use of this option during the protests. It was noted, however, that immediately after such an arrest, a judge had to approve the detention, and decide on its duration.
11.05.2007: interior minister threatens preventive detention. Zero tolerance against militant G8-critics: Germany’s interior minister Schaeuble is threatening violent extremists planning to disturb the G8 summit in Heiligendamm with preventive detention. Militants could be detained for up to 14 days given proof of a planned crime. He also spoke of a generally increased threat level during the summit: “We should be warned: the terrible attacks in London took place during the G8-summit in Gleneagles.”
12.05.2007: Hamburg: mass detention for demonstrators? Hamburg’s interior senator Udo Nagel is planning to, if necessary, detain violent demonstrators against the G8. He called on peaceful protesters to distance themselves from violent ones.
12.05.2007: embarrassing glitches in investigations against G8 critics. The SPIEGEL reports that investigators against anti-G8 activists made some embarrassing mistakes: some of the accused were warned of the actions through phone bills, mistakenly delivered letters. Some of the accused are already of pension age, the oldest one is 68. The police thus assume that they are unlikely to have carried out the actions themselves.
13.05.2007: Hamburg: car impounded. Yesterday, the federal police impounded a car parked in a public location, with the justification that anti-G8 info materials were found in it.
13.05.2007: Berlin police scrutinise youth seminar about G8 protests. On Sunday, Berlin police noted the particulars of participants at a workshop about the G8 protests organised by the leftist youth organisation Solid, impounding two mobile phones. Representatives of the Left Party were highly critical of the action.
13.05.2007: After the raids in Berlin: tracking device discovered. Campinski Media Group, press release (excerpts): Three days after the raids throughout Germany, a police-tracking device was found attached to the car of one of the accused members of the authors’ collective “AG Grauwacke”, supposedly a founding member of the shadowy “Militant Campaign against the Economic Summit”. Given that the device had almost certainly been attached to the car for a while, he counsels people involved in the raids to “check their cars thoroughly”.