In Germany, dozens of people are in 'preventive detention' because they might otherwise engage in climate protests

ray@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.ml – 822 points –
mstdn.social
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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.

DEUTSCHLAND 😎💪🏿💪🏿💪🏿

what is not going to Oktoberfest gonna do?

being out of reach of nazis or conservative christians can increase safety and well-being

So you're saying we should all drop social media? Not a bad idea

But what if I want to snort Wiesnkoks off of a dick?

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.

This is legal Germany?

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!

Oly in Bavaria. In every other German State this can only be done for a few days max in extreme situations.

Actually, Bavaria has a 2 month limit. Schleswig-Holstein is the one with no limit.

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.

Feels like a half assed Minority Report plotline.

"Okay, so what cool plot idea do we use to determine who might commit crimes?"

"IDK, just anyone maybe? People who use the internet?"

Same way I look for weed in illegal countries; find hippies and dreadlocks.

Is this similar to a conspiracy charge?

It doesn't sound like it. Conspiracy means there's documented evidence of a plan and motive to commit a crime. This doesn't seem like it meets that standard.

Thanks. I have no clue about German law. Oddly even though America has a large German population historically, our laws are based on English, French and Spanish laws.

The difference in regards to a conspiracy charge is that you don't need a conspiracy behind it.

In Germany, there are actually 18 different laws regarding this, since that part of the law is federated. So each state of Germany (plus the federal police and the federal criminal police) has it's own law regarding under what circumstances they are allowed to arrest someone before they committed a crime and for how long.

Originally, these laws had two purposes:

  • Stop someone from committing a serious crime
  • Stop someone from doing harm to themselves

And as such, these laws used to have tight limits on when they can apply and for how long people are allowed to be arrested.

A case could be made for these laws. E.g. if someone announces online that they are going to shoot kids at a school, it would be totally justified to quickly bag that guy before he kills children. Waiting for a court order might not be fast enough to save the would-be victims.

But then they started to expand the reasons why someone can be arrested and for how long.

In Bavaria, for example, it's enough that someone carries items that can be used for criminal purposes. And there they can jail people for up to two months without a charge.

There have been cases where someone was put in jail for two months for carrying items like crowbars or ropes in their backpacks.

Well they did identify themselves as members of a group that publicly announced it would continue to commit crimes.

Well, no. Blocking traffic is no crime. It's just a misdemeanor (Verwaltungsübertretung).

It's really something for the lawyers but it could be considered "Nötigung" (§ 181 StGB) and/or "Gefährlicher Eingriff in den Straßenverkehr" (§ 315b StGB).

Pretty sure if it's in the StGB it's a "crime" (Straftat).

In English, at least for the US, there are typically only misdemeanors and felonies, and both are crimes. There are also violations, but those are usually civil, not criminal (parking tickets, for example).

Sorry, mistranslation. I meant violations. Over here we only split into violations and crimes.

Violations cover most things done with a car/in traffic without actively harming someone.

Yeah, in English (in the US, generally) we'd call that a civil violation. Or a civil action where a lawsuit is brought by a private citizen, like suing someone for damaging your property. It's against the law, but probably not going to be prosecuted by the government.

There is a law that lets the police take people into custody to prevent terror attacks, but that’s not the case here.

Complaints have been lodged before, but hitherto dismissed. And final clarity on the legality of the procedure is still pending.

It helps to read the article.

but that's not the case here

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.

It’s basically our texas or florida, depending on your pov. It’s a place with great nature, interesting culture but also very crude beliefs and you either like the culture or you dont. Most importantly, police is said to be a pot rougher over there and politics is pretty conservative as well.

What the fuck

Germany is not alright and Bavaria is the least alright , nominally leftist parties barely get up to 10% in elections there so yeah was to be expected.

But yeah.

Additional Context: The state government of Bavaria (and several others around that same period, with similar ideas) passed a controversial reform of police laws in 2017-2018 (It was polemically called "The strictest police law since 1945").

It included changes such as:

  • increased allowance of use of personal data by the police forces.

  • allowing the police to openly film and photograph people participating in public gatherings.

  • allowing the police to infringe on postal secrecy and to confiscate mail without a person's knowledge. (if given permission by the courts)

  • allowing the use of police spies. Including even entering people's homes if given permission.

As well as making previous restrictions such as on "probable danger" way more lax.

They should put some kind of mark on all those suspicious people and their house, to also let other people know who lives among them.

English translation (from Google Translate):

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?"

Thank you for the translation. This is exactly why people need to be wary of tools used against bad actors, that will then be used against everyone. A tool in the toolbox will be used by the police. Slippery slope is real. Once you establish precedent the tool is useful, you'll see it again.

It's not a slippery slope fallacy, if the slope is actually slippery.

Bad actors are everywhere and are especially drawn to positions of power (normal people see life-changing power over others as a major responsability, hence a burden).

This is why you limit power concentration on any single individual or organisation, have checks-and-balances on power and have higher demands of transparency and reporting one those with power than on run-of-the-mill citizens.

Of course the assholes drawn to power will do everything they can to subvert, nullify, remove or bypass those mechanisms and the reasons why we see right here in how these people (never forget, organisations are not sentient: it's always people making decisions) because they could choose to use these kind of laws that break the spirit of the Rule Of Law in democracies - which we were told were for use against terrorists (a very specific type of mass murder) - against demonstrators who have not even committed an actual crime and whose history indicated that the biggest crime the would ever commit would be mild property damage, something nowhere near the range of actual murder, much less mass murder.

In Canada I'm very wary of the current trial against the leaders of the Freedom Convoy for this reason. Popular sentiment at the time of their protest was that they were bad for blocking the road, and what comes from this trial could set precedent that could be used to criminalize climate and social justice protests in the future.

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.

What! A! Surprise!

PRE-CRIME, JUST LIKE IN THE SCI-FI TREATS

soypoint-1 no-mouth-must-scream soypoint-2

EDIT: reddit-logo is leaking again; apparently even emojis can get pulled over by the Pedantry Police. 🚔 berdly-actually 🚓

Ah yes being chained by vroom vroom for wrongthonk, just like in my spooky sci-fi treat 1979 by George Foreman.

Did the cops at least wear cowboy hats and greet them by saying 'audi pardner?

blob-no-thoughts

this some kind of deep fried 10k times folded turbo meming that wouldn't even be allowed on the autobahn.

What does this have to do with "I have no mouth and i must scream"?

I can't remember any "pre-crime" in it. Just an AI torturing people for his amusement.

I know.

I was just stretching the application of the emoji to summarize bad futuristic outcomes because there isn't a Minority Report related emoji yet.

You can't just use any random emoji you want, that doesn't make any sense.

You can't just use any random emoji you want, that doesn't make any sense.

the absolute state of lemee

I've used it for well over a year.

You are the very first person to ever complain about how I used it.

Fair enough. I don't believe it is a very popular story so that might be the reason.

Why is there even an Emoji for the book? Does it come up that often on hexchat?

I don't believe it is a very popular story so that might be the reason.

It was popular enough for me to have known about it before I saw the emoji.

Why is there even an Emoji for the book? Does it come up that often on hexchat?

Because the Hexbear creator of emojis decided it'd be fun to add it, and it was almost immediately used to summarize bleak and terrible future outcomes, especially in reference to this moment mocking the tendency of tech billionaires to miss the point of the fiction they consume and make announcements about how they want to make the bad things in such fiction come true:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/386/548/92f.jpg

Odd, but alright then. Maybe it makes more sense the the "emoji" renders properly.

Have you read the story? If not, do it. It's pretty great and only around 40 min long.

Harlan Ellison made an audiobook version I listened to, while also reading it at the same time: https://youtu.be/dgo-As552hY

You can also borrow the book for free here: https://archive.org/details/ihavenomouthimus0000harl

Or just get it for free in many other places.

Edit: oh and what is stormfront? Edit 2: the "I have no mouth..." game is also pretty great and was given away for free on GOG a while back so you might already have it, if you keep track of those things. That game is inspired by the book but it is mainly it's own story.

I read it years ago. The computer game version had AM voiced by the author himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddX9hnhDS4

Edit: oh and what is stormfront?

That's just a little jab at Reddit itself for its cryptofascist leanings. The emoji that Hexbear marks as "Reddit" uses the text of Reddit's old Stormfront community, which was itself a nazi hangout until it was mod-raided to become a weather forecast community, but the name's meaning persisted.

Thanks for explaining and reminding me of the book. I should re-read it.

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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.

When did Anti-environmentalist tomfoolery become pro-Nazi?

It's not the cause, it's the tactics. Throwing people in jail before they actually do anything is a classic hallmark of tyranny.

The tactics are tyrannical but not uniquely fascist. Jailing political opponents because they angered the crown is a European tradition that predates Rome.

Fair. I guess fascist is just what humanity has come to call such things.

Fascist is also what humanity uses to refer to actual fascism, which is having a pretty unfortunate resurgence at the moment. Its not just referring to tyranny.

I heard someone call the removal of the green M&M fascism once. Just because people label it as such doesn't make it accurate.

I mean, Nazis have a consistent record of being everything anti human and good personified. Capitalists want oil production to continue, they'll fund fascists to be their force to ensure it goes uninterrupted

Nazis were largely wiped out before society at large realized Carbon emissions were a problem. Externalizing problems with our nation states on "Nazi Gremlins" instead of our lack of dedication to freedom is exactly why these theoretical protestors are political prisoners.

The NSDAP was wiped out in 1945 but denazification was woefully incomplete and individual Nazis held positions of power in institutions like NATO, NASA, West German intelligence, etc, well after the 50s. That's just direct members of the NSDAP and not all the neo-nazi splinter parties which West Germany and United Germany by their own admissions never wiped out. Add onto that various explicitly neo-Nazi groups in other countries and active militant Nazi-adjacent groups overseas and I don't think it's accurate or productive to say that Nazism has been "largely wiped out".

"Become"? No. It just has been for lone one of their indicative "modern" traits.

Yeah that's incorrect.

https://facingtoday.facinghistory.org/examining-nazi-environmentalism-during-earth-week

Their motivations were still racist and bad, but the Nazis in Germany were not anti-environment.

Unless you mean modern Nazis, at which point ok maybe I haven't really researched modern Nazis. I know the people they support certainly are, whether they admit they're Nazis or not.

I mean... They explicitly said "modern"

On a thread about Nazi Germany, forgive me for staying on topic.

My bad, I didn't notice that.

I do think though that the parent comment was mainly referring to detaining people without due process when talking about Nazi Germany, rather than the environmental perspective.

hmmm this reminds me of something i just cant quite remember

Oktoberfest! Those days were a real gas!

This is the worst thing i've ever said online.

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.

"the free world"

The planet is being cooked by oil companies benefitting from your tax dollars and you're thrown in jail for disagreeing with it...

but then they want to lecture you about "freedom" when you mention regulating pollution in any capacity.

I work with people who actually think that’s a good thing. I really fucking hate my coworkers.

What does this have to do with technology?

OP may have posted it to this mag instead of another one by mistake

First they came for the environmentalists, and I said nothing because I didn't want my commute to be inconvenienced...

Is this like Minority-Report-type shit?

Put there by the really same government you should trust for nuclear power

Some European tell me again why you believe you have free speech.

To be fair last time I checked Germany isn't all Europe. They did try once tough....we prefer not talk about it too much nowadays tough.

Is disrupting traffic by glueing yourself to the road covered by the first ammendment in the US?

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.

I find it funny, you talk about freedom, Europeans will defend their governments as free, shit on the US, defend government power in the name of protecting the public, but then, preemptively jailing people, like previous authoritarian states of Europe would do, and they're all surprised pikachu face. I doubt they'll ever get it, Europeans are lemmings.

Except the French. The French light shit on fire when their government displeases them.

This is generalising a bit much done you think? This is like saying all US states are the same, but more outrageous as they're completely separate countries with different cultures, languages, and governments

well, you have a history of authoritarianism and warrantless detention in many, many European countries, the US is all entirely subject to the US constitution which explicitly forbids warrantless searches, detention absent due process and things like that. It has a few blind spots, and the rules are broken, but generally can be corrected and the culprits prosecuted. Detention in Germany for example without a jury trial and evidence of illegal activity is perfectly legal, as it is in the UK and almost every other European country so long as it protects the general welfare or some other such broad meaningless condition.

US does shit like this all the time. Guantanamo bay ring a bell? There are still people there who haven't been convicted of a crime.

That doesn't count, those were brown people!

constitution which explicitly forbids warrantless searches

Bullshit. I have been arrested for a warrantless search.

It has a few blind spots, and the rules are broken, but generally can be corrected and the culprits prosecuted.

Absolute dog shit take. Sounds like the law has been favouring you. Most aren't so lucky.