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GERMANY
Germany: Police employed ‘psychological terrorism’ during G8

Dale Mills

19 July 2007

The European-wide human rights monitoring organisation State Watch is now collecting reports on the policing of protests during the June 6-8 G8 summit in Germany.

One report, from the group European Democratic Lawyers, expressed concern that more 1000 people had been arrested and quickly released, giving rise to the suspicion that they were arrested for intelligence-gathering purposes. Of the 1000+ arrested, only nine people were convicted during the summit, with some cases outstanding.

Nearly all of those arrested were in “small groups or isolated demonstrators”. Those arrested were photographed by digital cameras connected to facial-recognition software.

The use of arrest powers simply to photograph people was condemned in the strongest terms as “an illegal system of mass-indexing and psychological terrorism” — harsh words from members of an otherwise restrained profession.

Further information can be found at http://www.statewatch.org.