<nettime> News about Berlin terrorism case: terrorism cancelled - last three detainees set free on bail

[Anna <anna@mail.nadir.org>]

Not sure whether this is actually fit for nettime, but since there
seemed a vital interest in the case I'm sending it and leave the
decision up to the moderators of the list ;). gr Anna


Dear all,

we have not managed for a while to put together a summary of what is
happening concerning 'our' terrorism case. Unfortunately there was no
more 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, we're sending you a
short email with the latest developments.

Also please note the information at the end of this email about a
lecture in English language next Thursday in Berlin
during the CCC Congress which will be streamed via internet and later
will be ready for download.

We would also like to use the opportunity to ask you one more time to
consider donating for the campaign. We have received an amazing lot of
donations, thank you all. Unfortunately law cases are expensive - as you
all know - and we continue to depend on more donations to be able to pay
an group of very dedicated lawyers, and 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, collegues or (former) room mates.
http://einstellung.so36.net/en/donations

The great news ist that already Nov 28 the other three who were arrested
in July were set free. Arrest warrant 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 Euro, but one day later everyone was set free.

The other important detail is that the court in 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' of 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 up to 10 years of 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 again
"Crime by association - Terrorist law used to criminalise critical
research", by Statewatch (http://einstellung.so36.net/en/ps/392). //

We have 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 do understand German. One drew the parallel to the case
against the american artist Steve Kurtz, member of the Critical Art
Ensemble and accused of bioterrorism in 2004 (details at
http://www.caedefensefund.org). We showed excerpts of the excellent
documentary by Lynn Hershman 'Strange Culture',
http://strangeculture.net/ and if you have the chance to see it don't
miss it!

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

The other event, "We are all terrorists", took place in the Volksbühne
theatre. Actors did a reading of excerpts of adapted case files in the
beginning and then suspects in four different terrorism cases against
political activists presented details from their respective cases. Often
similar absurdities such as 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 worthwhile watching.

// Video at http://chaosradio.ccc.de/ctv106.html //


We'd love to have the capacities 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.

===============================

*Coming up*:
Thursday, Dec 27, 18:30 GMT+1 during the 24th annual Chaos Communication
Congress (http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Welcome!)

*What is terrorism*? *And who is terrorising whom*?
1h lecture by the partner of Andrej Holm about life with surveillance
and writing a weblog about it. Details at
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2381.en.html

Find out when the live stream is happening in your part of the world at
http://tinyurl.com/2r5klz

Details about documentation will be published soon at
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Conference_Documentation

===============================

Last but not least we prolongued the deadline for our contest "What is
terrorism".
You can still send in / upload your contributions with *your* definition
of terrorism until Feb 15! See other contributions at
http://einstellung.so36.net/en/what-is-terror/contributions and please
forward this information.



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


-- 
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