On July 30th and 31st, four men have been arrested – accused of being members of a terrorist organization, according to §129a of the German penal code. The Academic Advisory Council of Attac Germany condemns these current proceedings and the official justification of the warrants of arrest. They leave the basis of the constitutional state and are a further example of the extension of state-of-emergency-terrorism laws: As the defence lawyers say: the "attempt to set three cars on fire without the possibility of physical harming anybody is labelled as terrorism".
The Academic Advisory Council especially criticizes that the scientific activity of Andrej H. is taken as a justification for his arrest:
This does not only criminalize critical social science but puts it directly under the suspicion of terrorism. The official reasoning behind the arrest is an insult for common sense. If this reasoning is accepted by society it will destroy the fundamentals of a critical public in a free society. If the reasoning is taken as evidence for the membership in a terrorist organization, critical science is put under general suspicion.
The Advisory Council fears that the federal minister of the interior, Wolfgang Schäuble and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) started a process, which will substantially undermine the principles of the rule of law in Germany. The process started with criminalization of the preparations for this year´s G8 protests. Offices, bookstores and apartments were searched, with reference to the highly controversial §129a of the German penal code, to an extent unknown since the 1970s. This kind of criminalization and exclusion contains the danger that it is these government actions producing and provoking what they allegedly want to prevent: terrorism. Attac´s Academic Advisory Council demands from the officials to stop the criminal proceedings against Andrej H., to release him and to return to a mode of operation according to the principles of the rule of law.
For further question please contact:
Prof. Dr. Andreas Fisahn, jurist, telephone: 0049 (0) 170 752 7560
Prof Dr. Rainer Rilling, sociologist, telephone: 0049 (0) 170 553 8739