Starmarch Coalition
Press release
20th May 2007

G8: Ban on demonstrations up to 6 kilometres from Heiligendamm.
Lawyer: "Prohibited zones are unprecendented in the history of the German Federal Republic." Special department "Kavala" slow to process other registered demonstrations.

During the G8 summit there will be a ten day ban on demostrations and assemblies within as well as 200 metres around the fence in Heilgendamm. From the 5th to 8th of June, i.e. during the summit meetings, this zone will be extended to a 4km area around the fence. Demonstrations are to be kept at a 6km distance to the conference hotel.

This weekend, on behalf of the starmarch coalition, a group of lawyers lodged an urgent law suit against the injunction at the court in Schwerin. In the appeal the lawyers state that, although the G8 delegations have no legitimacy to do so, they make decisions that have serious international consequences. This is why international protest should be made visibile to them. The "sentiments of the state guests" that the police do not want to upset, must play a secondary role.

Excerpt from the law suit:
"Protests against international politics carry special weight - they must be given the space to be expressed and to be taken seriously by the heads of states of the G8 countries along with the international public. Effective public visibility means specifically that international media must have access to the protests. The necessary visibility of the protests can only be guaranteed if the protests are able to generate media attention at the actual location where events are taking place. The basic right of association is even more important at such supranational events than at national ones."

According to the Hamburg-based solicitor Carsten Gericke, the demonstration bans are for the most part unlawful: "The prohibition zones designated by Kavala are unprecedented in the history of the German Federal Republic", he explains. "If organisers wishing to obtain the permission to demonstrate cannot hold their event, then their rigt to association is irrepairably violated. This is because the demostration in question is irrevocably relevant to the event taking place within the area of the ban," he further elaborates.

The police are also claiming that "extraordinary threats" to the G8 summit exist. However, there are no indications of such a threat. In the law suit that has been lodged it states that the German police and the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution have been forced to admit that "sustainable indications of serious threats or dangers have not been able to be brought forward by the office dealing with the issue."

Furthermore, the suit criticises the police organisation Kavala: "Creating a special department "Kavala" within the Rostock police force to process this injunction is unlawful", Gericke writes. Equally, the creation of this special department with hundreds of civil servants has led to a situation in which the registration of many assemblies and demonstrations have not been processed at all or only very slowly:

"The effect has been that the office has not acted in accordance with its constitutionally determined duties to cooperate because this special department had to first be made operational and is staffed by external civil servants. Because of this, the rights of the organisers registering the demonstration have been denied."

Other registrations have also been affected by the ban. The organisation "Jewish Voice" has registered a protest rally with 150 activists from Palestine and Israel on June 5th. The 5th June is the 40th anniversary of the start of the Six Day War. The organisation has still not even received a written response to their request.

"We are very pleased with the broad and even international media response and sympathy with the protests against the G8 summit", say the organisers of the star march on June 7th. International calls to demonstrate against the G8 continue.

[Starmarch Coalition]