Recently, 13 climate activists were put in “preventive detention” under the BayPAG for 30 days without trial after a street blockade in Munich. The climate activists are now to spend 30 days in Stadelheim prison for an action that is not threatened with a prison sentence by the courts. So, while those who are committed to protecting our livelihoods are behind bars, the state and corporations continue to destroy our planet without any punishment. This unequal treatment is also evident when thousands of people are put in jail every year for driving without a ticket, while real crimes like the Cum-Ex robbery are hardly prosecuted or even convicted.
Until now, the Bavarian PAG mainly put refugees behind bars without trial and mostly without publicity, just because they denounced grievances. The future Frontex budget for 2027 of almost 6 billion euros is supposed to keep war and climate refugees away from Europe. What is happening now is a consequence of the intensified state action against progressive forces: In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, the police law “Lex Hambi” was introduced in order to be able to prosecute end-of-terrain activists more intensively; at the IAA, the truncheon was conspicuously loose; more and more anti-fascists are being put behind bars; organized Kurds are being deported to Turkish torture prisons; strikes in the port of Hamburg are being ended by court orders.
This is not a random escalation of criminalization, but happens in the face of intensified capitalist crises: The war, energy, health and climate crises show us that things cannot go on like this and thus lead to stronger protests. In order to contain them and to protect the continuation of the system, the state is introducing ever more authoritarian laws and expanding the powers of the police. The more we represent a counter-power to the system or parts of the system, the more repression we will experience, accompanied by agitation by part of the media.
Our solidarity is with all those who are working for climate justice, peace, social justice, anti-fascism, the liberation of oppressed people, etc. Our concern here is not with welcoming or rejecting individual forms of action, but with something larger: our freedom to fight for a better world. If we remain silent now, measures like 30-day detention without trial will become the norm and state actors will be able to suppress unwelcome voices more easily. It may affect individuals, but it affects all of us! Our protest against state repression is necessary! And that’s why we continue to fight and take back the streets!
Come to Wettersteinplatz on Sunday, 13.11. at 14:00 and show that we will not let them take our freedom! In solidarity with the imprisoned climate activists! #noPAG
