this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 166 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 year ago

Bavaria doesn't even pretend to care anymore.

[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kind of. Iirc it's a very controversial practice and whenever the police pulls it out in a public case it gets protested again (for good reason). Also, even if the practice is legal right now, there's a lot of limitations to it. Obviously it's nudging the ethical boundaries of police work either way.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Maybe they should arrest everyone that might protest against this before they arrest the other people that might protest against climate change. But then people might protest against that too. I guess everyone is under arrest! You're all under arrest. Get in the hole!

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oly in Bavaria. In every other German State this can only be done for a few days max in extreme situations.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Actually, Bavaria has a 2 month limit. Schleswig-Holstein is the one with no limit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Makes sense, they border denmark after all

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't read German, but we have a similar legal system in the Netherlands.

Most likely, these people committed some crime during a previous protest, such as illegally entering private property or vandalism. Often they will get sentences that are conditional.

If there is evidence to believe they are conspiring to commit a similar illegal act, then the conditional part of the sentence gets triggered.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nope, it's actually only that the police has reason to believe that they might commit a crime.

No need for them to be prior offenders or anything. The police can arrest anyone at any time if they believe you might commit a crime. And even comparatively minor things like blocking traffic counts.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Feels like a half assed Minority Report plotline.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Okay, so what cool plot idea do we use to determine who might commit crimes?"

"IDK, just anyone maybe? People who use the internet?"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Same way I look for weed in illegal countries; find hippies and dreadlocks.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is this similar to a conspiracy charge?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It doesn't sound like it. Conspiracy means there's documented evidence of a plan and motive to commit a crime. This doesn't seem like it meets that standard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks. I have no clue about German law. Oddly even though America has a large German population historically, our laws are based on English, French and Spanish laws.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The difference in regards to a conspiracy charge is that you don't need a conspiracy behind it.

In Germany, there are actually 18 different laws regarding this, since that part of the law is federated. So each state of Germany (plus the federal police and the federal criminal police) has it's own law regarding under what circumstances they are allowed to arrest someone before they committed a crime and for how long.

Originally, these laws had two purposes:

  • Stop someone from committing a serious crime
  • Stop someone from doing harm to themselves

And as such, these laws used to have tight limits on when they can apply and for how long people are allowed to be arrested.

A case could be made for these laws. E.g. if someone announces online that they are going to shoot kids at a school, it would be totally justified to quickly bag that guy before he kills children. Waiting for a court order might not be fast enough to save the would-be victims.

But then they started to expand the reasons why someone can be arrested and for how long.

In Bavaria, for example, it's enough that someone carries items that can be used for criminal purposes. And there they can jail people for up to two months without a charge.

There have been cases where someone was put in jail for two months for carrying items like crowbars or ropes in their backpacks.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well they did identify themselves as members of a group that publicly announced it would continue to commit crimes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, no. Blocking traffic is no crime. It's just a misdemeanor (Verwaltungsübertretung).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's really something for the lawyers but it could be considered "Nötigung" (§ 181 StGB) and/or "Gefährlicher Eingriff in den Straßenverkehr" (§ 315b StGB).

Pretty sure if it's in the StGB it's a "crime" (Straftat).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In English, at least for the US, there are typically only misdemeanors and felonies, and both are crimes. There are also violations, but those are usually civil, not criminal (parking tickets, for example).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry, mistranslation. I meant violations. Over here we only split into violations and crimes.

Violations cover most things done with a car/in traffic without actively harming someone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, in English (in the US, generally) we'd call that a civil violation. Or a civil action where a lawsuit is brought by a private citizen, like suing someone for damaging your property. It's against the law, but probably not going to be prosecuted by the government.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a law that lets the police take people into custody to prevent terror attacks, but that’s not the case here.

Complaints have been lodged before, but hitherto dismissed. And final clarity on the legality of the procedure is still pending.

It helps to read the article.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but that's not the case here

But this is in fact how the police argues. Climate protests are terror attacks (since they disrupt traffic) and therefore this is justified.

Pretty sure the Bundesverfassungsgericht (basically our supreme court) will shut this practice down – just like all the other times Bavarian laws have been ruled unconstitutional – but Bavaria doesn't care. They scrap the law and replace it with a similar unconstitutional version and wait 2 years until the Bundesverfassungsgericht rules it unconstitutional and so on.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

It’s basically our texas or florida, depending on your pov. It’s a place with great nature, interesting culture but also very crude beliefs and you either like the culture or you dont. Most importantly, police is said to be a pot rougher over there and politics is pretty conservative as well.