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Tag: Berlin

  • Europe cracks down on ‘direct action’ climate protests

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    Insight: Europe cracks down after rise in ‘direct action’ climate protests

    • Summary
    • France, German states use wiretaps, GPS to track activists
    • Bavaria tries to stop protests with preventative detention
    • Berlin police spend more than 400,000 hours on climate cases
    • France outlaws one group, German states consider ban

    BERLIN, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Simon Lachner had plans to glue himself to a German city thoroughfare in June to call public attention to climate change. Instead, he ended up in police custody before he’d even left his home.

    Lachner, 28, is one of thousands of activists caught up in a European crackdown on a wave of direct action protests that gathered pace last year demanding urgent government action against climate change.

    Roadblocks on major motorways in Britain have caused traffic chaos, protests at oil installations in Germany have disrupted supplies, and in France, thousands of activists and police clashed over water usage, leaving dozens injured.

    Determined to prevent such protests from strengthening further, states in Germany and national authorities in France are invoking legal powers often used against organised crime and extremist groups to wiretap and track activists, Reuters found, based on conversations with four prosecutors, police in both countries and more than a dozen protesters.

    In Berlin alone, police have spent hundreds of thousands of hours working on more than 4,500 incidents registered against the “The Last Generation” and “Extinction Rebellion” groups, according to previously unreported data from police.

    State authorities in Germany are widely using preventative detention to stop people from protesting, including holding at least one person for as long as 30 days without charge, which is permissible under Bavarian law, the prosecutors consulted by Reuters said.

    Lawmakers passed new surveillance and detention laws in France in July and in Britain in May, with Britain making it illegal to lock, or glue, yourself to property.

    …

    Insight: Europe cracks down after rise in ‘direct action’ climate protests

  • Last Generation activists pose as politicians to block roads

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    https://www.dw.com/en/last-generation-activists-pose-as-politicians-to-block-roads/a-66226507

    Masked climate activists blocked traffic in Berlin, claiming the government has broken the law. The group defended protests a day earlier that blocked airport runways.

    Last Generation protest 14 July 2023
    The protesters claim the government is breaking the law and not acting fast enough on climate change Image: picture alliance/dpa

    Activists from Germany’s Last Generation climate protest group protested at one of Berlin’s most iconic intersections during the morning rush hour on Friday, with other actions planned across the city and the rest of Germany.

    The campaigners, who claim the government has broken its own laws on climate change, wore masks depicting senior politicians.

    …

    Further actions across the capital were planned on Friday, including one at Berlin’s main train station. Police also said protesters had blocked traffic near Germany’s Reichstag parliament building and the Brandenburg Gate.

    Last Generation said 36 sit-ins were planned Friday in 26 cities across Germany.

    A day earlier, protesters attached themselves to runways at Hamburg and Düsseldorf airports — prompting calls for tough penalties against activists. In May, large-scale raids targeted members of the group. 

    However, Last Generation spokeswoman Lina Johnsen said the protests were out of necessity because the government had been breaking its own rules.

    “It is the responsibility of politicians to protect what we need for life. And they are knowingly not doing that by continuing to break their own climate protection goals,” said Johnsen.

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    https://www.dw.com/en/last-generation-activists-pose-as-politicians-to-block-roads/a-66226507