G8: Activists Feel the Hammer

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

BERLIN, May 10 2007 (IPS) - A nationwide raid on left-wing activists in Germany Wednesday on charges of terrorism and planning to disturb the G8 summit next month follows a long official campaign to stifle protest at the meet.

Some 900 German police officers raided some 40 offices and houses of left-wing activists. Most of the activists were suspected of planning to disrupt the G8 heads of government summit to take place Jun. 6-8 in the Baltic seaside resort Heiligendamm, some 200 km northeast of capital Berlin.

The raids took place in the north and northeastern parts of the country, mostly in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, and other cities in the federal states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The police identified 20 persons as key suspects, but said that no one had been detained.

Police also disrupted Internet connections, and seized computers and records related to planned protests at the G8 summit.

“The militant extreme left groups and their members are suspected of having founded a terrorist group, or of being members of such an organisation, with the specific goal of staging fire bombings and other violent attacks in order to disrupt or prevent the upcoming G8 summit in Heiligendamm,” the federal prosecution office said in a statement.

The office also accused the groups of carrying out several minor attacks in recent months.

German interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has announced that the government would tighten border controls to screen out violent foreign protesters.

“As part of security measures for the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, controls can be carried out on various border points…to prevent potential criminals and others intending to use violence from entering Germany,” Schaeuble said. “Particular attention will be paid to potentially violent anti-globalisation activists.”

The police actions follow moves directed by Schaeuble to tighten security controls in a declared fight against terrorism.

Schaeuble has proposed calling in the army, authorising the tapping of Internet connections, and greater use of biometric data in personal identity documents.

Schaeuble has also sought authorisation to shoot down commercial flights over German territory in case of kidnappings.

In an interview with the weekly Stern, Schaeuble said that “in the fight against terrorism, the presumption of innocence has no validity. It would mean to say, I allow ten terrorist attacks to take place, instead of detaining one person, who maybe is not involved in any crime.”

But Schaeuble denies that he is planning to eliminate civil liberties.

“I conceive of the rule of law and our constitutional system as a defender of our freedom,” he said. “To this system of rights belongs freedom from international terrorism. And it is an essential task of the state to defend and guarantee our security, our freedom.”

Schaeuble has warned repeatedly in recent months that Germany faces major risks as a likely target for Islamist terrorists groups.

But not everyone is convinced of such threats. Peter Schaar, federal commissioner for civil liberties, has called Schaeuble’s plans “a disproportionate attack against our rights. We are dismantling the rule of law guaranteed by the German constitution.”

Schaar said many of Schaeuble’s ideas have already taken shape. “Numerous perfectly innocent people are already under suspicion, because they are using Internet or the telephone. Just the fact that I use telecommunications is enough to make me a potential criminal.”

At the Heiligendamm summit next month, the heads of government of the eight most industrialised countries (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States) will meet to discuss global issues such as international trade, global warming and economic aid to Africa.

Heads of government of the major five emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) will also attend the summit.

According to German authorities and anti-globalisation organisations, some 100,000 German and foreign activists are expected to participate in demonstrations in the region around Heiligendamm against what left-wing groups call neo-liberal G8 policies.

German authorities have constructed a 12-kilometre concrete and barbed wire fence at a cost of 17 million dollars around the summit site.

In all, 16,000 police officers and more than 1,100 soldiers will guard the fence, and keep protesters several kilometres away from the summit site. Nine naval ships will patrol the waters off the resort.