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Climate activists: Raids on last generation in seven countries

Climate activists: Raids on last generation in seven countries

The climate protection activists of the last generation reap a lot of anger, but also applause for their protest actions. Now the Bavarian judiciary is resorting to drastic measures.

With a raid in seven federal states, the police and public prosecutors took action against the climate protection group Last Generation. Around 170 officers searched 15 apartments and business premises from early in the morning, as announced by the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. The charge is to form or support a criminal organization.

It is determined against seven suspects who are between 22 and 38 years old. Initially, there were no arrests. According to the investigators, two activists are suspected of having tried in April 2022 to sabotage the Trieste-Ingolstadt oil pipeline, which supplies Bavaria. LKA spokesman Ludwig Waldinger said: “This was addressed and damaged.” The suppliers would have had to interrupt the oil supply for hours.

The apartment of spokeswoman Carla Hinrichs, who is known nationwide after many TV appearances, was also searched in Berlin-Kreuzberg. She later reported: “The police kicked down the door and ran into my room while I was still in bed, gun drawn. To intimidate me, to stop me from telling the public that the disaster was just around the corner.”

The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office only confirmed that a unit of the Berlin police had entered the apartment. “How she entered it is police tactics. And we don’t say anything about that.”

Numerous lawsuits

According to the public prosecutor’s office, the investigations and searches are based on numerous criminal charges. The group regularly draws attention to the fatal consequences of global warming with sit-ins and actions in museums. The members often stick to it – on streets or on works of art.

The climate protection activists themselves vehemently denied being criminals and called for protest marches next Wednesday. There was a first demonstration with several hundred participants on Wednesday evening in Berlin.

“Do we first have to experience a drought in Germany, suffer from food shortages (…) before we understand that the last generation is responsible for all of our lives and that this is not criminal?” asked her spokeswoman Aimée van Baalen. Support came from Greenpeace executive director Martin Kaiser: “Reacting to the uncomfortable but peaceful civil disobedience of the last generation with house searches is completely disproportionate.” Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), on the other hand, explained that the measures show “that the rule of law cannot be played around on its nose”.

The central allegation of the police and the general public prosecutor’s office is that the accused are said to have organized a fundraising campaign to finance further crimes. At least 1.4 million euros were collected. Where the money came from is the subject of the investigation. The police did not initially say how much was confiscated. The search was therefore also for “evidence of the membership structure”.

There were searches in seven federal states, specifically in Hesse in the Fulda district, in Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt (Magdeburg), Saxony (Dresden), Bavaria (Augsburg and Munich), Berlin and in the Segeberg district in Schleswig-Holstein. According to initial information, the operations were peaceful. The group’s website was also confiscated and shut down by order of the public prosecutor’s office.

In the past few weeks, the environment for the activists had become rough. Annoyed drivers often punched and kicked the protesters and roughly dragged them off the street, and the Potsdam Regional Court confirmed the initial suspicion that the group could be a criminal organization for the first time.

Scholz on sticking actions: “Completely crazy”

On Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was also unusually critical and called the group’s sticking actions “completely crazy”. On Tuesday, eight activists smeared paint on the SPD party headquarters in Berlin in response to the statement.

The activists initially called for a “food save law” against food waste. The current demands are 100 km/h on motorways and a permanent 9-euro ticket for public transport.

The investigations are based at the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism. However, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office emphasized that this does not mean that the last generation is classified as extremist or terrorist. “Based on the current state of investigation, we assume that this is a criminal organization – mind you, not a terrorist one,” said the spokesman.

Source: Stern

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