Status: 17/08/2023, 15:58 p.m.
By: Ulrike Hagen
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The struggle between climate activists of the "last generation" and state power is reaching new dimensions. A coup by the Regensburg police backfired, reports ZDF.
Regensburg – There is a fire on the streets. Climate activists of the "Last Generation" block main traffic arteries, glue themselves, bring traffic to a standstill – and divide the whole of Germany with their protest. On Thursday (17 August), activists again blocked several roads in Nuremberg and Fürth.
A found food for the media, which are hungry to pounce on the increasingly out-of-control reactions to the protest. Just recently, an ARD documentary showed how passers-by in Berlin attack climate activists. Now a new stage of escalation, the "preventive detention" of a Regensburg resident, which became a boomerang for state power, became the subject of a ZDF report.
In Regensburg, climate activists glued themselves to the street. In the run-up, a man had been taken into preventive custody. © IMAGO / Manfred Segerer
Climate activist dragged out of his own house – measure backfires for police
The "Last Generation", which was only founded in 2021, regularly uses sit-ins on streets to draw attention to the effects of climate change. Recently, 43 activists were arrested in Würzburg after they blocked the B19 unannounced. Mind you: after the protest. The "detention" of Simon Lachner from Regensburg, who is now also reported by ZDF, was already carried out in anticipatory obedience. In the article, Lachner describes how two detectives stood in front of his door to take the activist away before the protest began "preventively," as the officials explained.
Before protests in Regensburg: Climate activist taken into preventive detention
In video footage posted to Twitter back in June, Lachner can be seen being dragged away. The paradox was that the measure apparently backfired on the state authorities, because it did not prevent the protests: the activists glued themselves to the roadway in Regensburg. But what the crackdown has brought about are critical statements from many sides – including criminal lawyers.
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If I get involved in the logic of reasoning, then the most efficient thing is to lock it away indefinitely ... but that cannot be the answer in a state governed by the rule of law.
Prof. Felix Hanschmann, Bucerius Law School in an interview with ZDF
"Preventive custody overshoots the goal of what you want to achieve," explains lawyer Felix Hanschmann in the ZDF report. "Of course it's effective, but if I get involved with the logic of argumentation, then the most efficient thing is to lock them away indefinitely, because then it's clear that they can't stick to each other at all," says the professor at Bucerius Law School, adding: "But that can't be the answer in a state governed by the rule of law."
From the Act on the Tasks and Powers of the Bavarian Police
Art. 17
Custody
(1) The police may take a person into custody if
: 1. this is necessary to protect the person against danger to life or limb, in particular because the person is recognizably in a state that precludes free will or is otherwise in a helpless situation,2
.
which is essential to prevent the imminent commission or continuation of an administrative offence of major public importance or of a criminal offence; the assumption that a person will commit or contribute to the commission of such an act may be based, in particular, on the fact that
: (a)
the person has announced or incited the commission of the act or is carrying banners or other objects with such a request; this also applies to leaflets of such content, provided that they are carried in a quantity suitable for distribution,b
)
weapons, tools or other objects are found in the person's possession which are obviously intended for the commission of the offence or which experience has shown to be used in such acts, or his accompanying person carries such objects with him or her and he or she should have been aware of them in the circumstances; or (c)
the person has already been affected several times in the past for a comparable reason in the commission of administrative offences of considerable importance to the general public or
criminal offences as a disturber and a repetition of this conduct is to be expected under the circumstances.
Source: Bavarian State Chancellery
Preventive detention, originally a means in the fight against terrorism
In fact, the means of preventive detention according to Section 17 of the Bavarian Police Act is originally a means of combating terrorism. In other federal states, even stricter action is being taken against the young climate activists. The most drastic verdict to date was handed down in Baden-Württemberg in April: three activists of the "Last Generation" were sentenced to several months in prison for blocking actions – not, as was customary until then, sentenced to fines.