Glued to the asphalt: police officers stand next to climate activists who blocked a street in Munich on November 7, 2022.
Image: dpa
A law in Bavaria allows people to be held in preventive custody for up to two months. Once intended for Islamists, the law is now being applied to activists – who are making just that part of their strategy.
uTo understand why the placement of climate activists in preventive custody in Bavaria is currently a political issue, it helps to go back to 2018. At that time, tens of thousands demonstrated against the Police Tasks Act (PAG), more precisely against an amendment that provided for a tightening of the legal situation in one point in particular: the maximum duration of preventive detention should be increased from 14 days with a view to Islamist threats who cannot be deported quickly be extended for a potentially indefinite period. A judge should only check every three months whether the conditions for detention are still met.
The law, which the state parliament approved in May 2018 with a CSU majority, came at a time when the ruling party was neglecting its liberal roots. This did not only apply to the PAG. In its original version, the Mental Health Assistance Act provided for an accommodation file whose personalized data could also be sent to the police to prevent criminal offenses. Above all, however, the asylum dispute boiled up – the CSU insisted on Chancellor Angela Merkel being able to reject refugees at the border.