Berlin bulletin

To: Retort
Via: MM

[Margit passes on this update on the Berlin anti-terrorism cases. Reminder: among seven Berliners accused by the German state under anti-terrorism legislation is Andrej Holm from Humboldt University, who specialises in urban gentrification. He was arrested under paragraph 129a of the anti-terrorism law, citing the repeated use of words such as "gentrification" and "inequality" in his academic papers, terms similar to those used by the urban activist organisation "militante gruppe".  According to the prosecution report the frequency of the overlap between words used by Holm and the group was "striking, and not to be explained through a coincidence." "The police may have solid knowledge they are withholding, but their public statements belong in the realm of farce," (Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen in the Guardian.). "This action in a liberal democracy seems more to fall into Guantánamo mode than genuine counterespionage." IB]

Berlin
25 xii 2007

Dear All, 
We have not managed for a while to put together a summary of what is
happening concerning our Berlin terrorism case. Unfortunately there has been no
further English language coverage in the media and we are moving closer to
our personal limits when it comes to keeping up with the pace of this
campaign. Now, near the end of the year when hopefully most of you and
us will find the time to sit back and relax, I'm sending you a
short email with the latest developments.

We would also like to use the opportunity to ask you one more time to
consider donating to our campaign. We have received an amazing number of
donations - thank you all. Unfortunately lawsuits are expensive, as you
all know, and we continue to depend on donations to be able to pay
a group of very dedicated lawyers, in order to support the seven accused, plus
close to 20 witnesses. In German law they are all threatened with up to
six months of coercive detention and/or high fines if they refuse to
testify against their friends, colleagues or (former) roommates.

<http://einstellung.so36.net/en/donations>

The great news is that on November 28th the other three who were arrested
in July were set free.  Arrest warrants are still in place, but the Federal
High court decided that they should be let out of prison on bail. It was
not easy to raise the €90.000, but one day later everyone was set free.

The other important detail is that the court, as part of this same decision,
decided that all seven are no longer accused of forming a terrorist
organisation.  An intense public debate in most of the big German media
preceded this, discussing how a terrorist organisation can and should be
defined today. Most statements after the decision by the High Court
agreed with us that this constitutes another 'slap in the face' for the
Federal Prosecutor. On the other hand the court also decided that all
seven are now to be prosecuted for forming a 'militant organisation',
§129 instead of §129a of the German penal code, possible sentences up to
5 instead of 10 years in prison. Not what we had hoped for, but a lot more than most had thought possible.

During this time we have extended our campaign calling for the end to
all 129a proceedings on the grounds that these inquiries are mainly
used to intimidate and spy on activist movements. Several other
investigations under this article against activists are being conducted.
(For background on the German anti-terrorim article §129a, see 
"Crime by association - terrorist law used to criminalise critical
research" by Statewatch <http://einstellung.so36.net/en/ps/392>.)

We organised two larger events in Berlin in November and December
that attracted large audiences. Both were recorded and are online - for
those of you who understand German. One drew the parallels to the case
against the American artist Steve Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art
Ensemble accused of bioterrorism in 2004 (details at
<http://www.caedefensefund.org>). We showed excerpts from the excellent
documentary by Lynn Hershman "Strange Culture",
<http://strangeculture.net/>. 

<Audio recording at http://einstellung.so36.net/de/ps/723>

The other event, "We are all terrorists", took place in the Volksbühne
Theatre.  Actors performed a reading of excerpts from files of four different terrorism cases against political activists. They are full of Kafkaesque details e.g., it being considered suspicious that a group of young antifascists did not participate in the protests against the G8, did not mention certain issues in their phone calls, did not discuss antimilitarim - they, too, are accused of setting fire to army
vehicles.  Again only in German, but very much worth watching. Video at <http://chaosradio.ccc.de/ctv106.html>.

We'd love to have the capacity to translate all of this into English,
but for the moment we don't. If anyone can think of possible funding for translations/subtitling of any of this, please let us know (anne0).

All the best from Berlin and looking forward to a better 2008

Anne