Solidarity-Statement of the Euro MayDay Vienna: Repression of Animal Rights Activists in Austria
On Wednesday, 21st of May 2008 Austrian special police forces violently stormed 23 flats in Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Graz – some of them carrying loaded weapons. In the following, the police conducted house searches in the flats of Austrian and German animal rights activists, confiscating computers, mobile phones and records / data; against 10 activists arrest warrants had been issued. Based on the public prosecutor’s office accusation of being members of a „criminal organisation“, the activists houses could be stormed and the people arrested – all that in accordance with § 278a StGB (criminal code).
§ 278a has been introduced to the Austrian criminal code in 1993, in order to enhance the combat against organized criminality – since then already the fact, that one is a member of such a „criminal organization“ is sufficient that one can be prosecuted – whereupon it is not necessary to prove that the accused really committed some concrete crime! The preconditions that a group can be called a criminal organization in contrast to a criminal association are the following: the organization has to be „company-like“, there has to be a certain number of members, the organization has to have the plan to gain financial profit or has to have a big influence on economy and/or politics; furthermore the prevention of criminal prosecution are part of the definition.
The arrest warrants and the search warrants contain lots of somewhat absurd references to the above mentioned attributes of a criminal organization. The currently imposed remand and it’s prolongation until the beginning of July for example had been justified referring to the „threat of obscuration“. This is justified by the fact, that the activists had used PGP – a program to encode emails – a program which is recommended by providers to use it for private Email-correspondence, because of the insecurity of the internet. A further reason for this accusation is the fact, that most of the accused are active members of animal rights groups since years. There are NO offences, which would be directly linkable to one of the activists and one might assume, that the police hoped to find something relevant at the house searches somewhat on the off chance. Nonetheless the police refers to hardly known, unsolved offences which happened within the last ten years and which are associated with the fictional construct of a „criminal organization“.
The Austrian spectrum animal rights groups is relatively small but in the last years one of the most active parts of new social movements; activists adopted new forms of international form of animal rights-activism, which were not known in Austria before and which therefore have been relatively successful. Obviously legal means did not suffice to stop the new campaigns – this seems to be the case because the house searches and arrests are currently the peak of repression against animal rights activists, but there have been much more repressive means in use even before. The arrested activists have been policed massively over the last months. Apart from the eavesdropping and observing of Emails activists were even located via the data packages sent by their mobile phones. Furthermore it is also possible, that there have been used even more means of surveillance, because the animal rights groups have been evaluated as the most dangerous by the federal office for the protection of the constitution – this is due to the fact, that the topic „animal rights“ and „animal protection“ could cause sympathy for „radical“ aims even within the broader society. The activists have been harassed by the authorities for month, with the aim to disturb their campaigns. The present attempt to criminalize the activists is not really new, but it is remarkable concerning its dimension and intensity! The current events are only exceeded by the so called „Operation Spring“ which took place in Vienna at the end of the 1990s. At that time §278 had been used to justify the so far biggest Austrian police action against the also completely fictional construct of „criminal organization“ of people with a migrant background and precarious legal status – also in that case many of the then arrested people had been political activists concerned with anti-racist political action.
Unlike in the case of „Operation Spring“ where the medial echo had been weak and mostly negative and criminalizing, there is much more attention of the media in this case – this might be due to the label „animal protection“. It is extremely important in this case, that there is a broad and united, extra-parliamentary solidarity within other branches of new social movements. Aside from the topic of animal rights (Although there are some tendencies of belittlement of Nazi-crimes within a specific part of the animal rights activists, as they compare living- and dying-conditions of animals with the Holocaust – which cannot be tolerated) it is important now to raise our consciousness considering the fact, that §278 could easily be used against all the other political structures and groups within the austrian new social movements as well. It is a means of repression which could be directed against every individual acting politically.
According to the police also MayDay would be a criminal organization. Via organizing the parade and discussion meetings, MayDay activists want to convert the topic „precarity“ into a political instrument, with which it is possible to influence politics and economy – and for sure not to defend interests expressed in those fields. Furthermore the EuroMayDay is to be called a relatively big group – not least because of the big number of participants at the parade. Furthermore it is pretty obvious, that the pretence of „measures of prosecution“ every police repression is justified, which means that we have to „shield“ ourselves – which means concretely that policewomen/-men are of course NOT welcomed at our meetings.
We call for:
- The Immediate dismissal of all investigations and prosecuting actions and the release of all arrested, who are kept in custody due to the mentioned vague accusations
- The immediate abolition of §278a, because of the fact that it is repeatedly used to criminalize political activists
- The immediate clarification of the political background of this campaign of criminalization of political activists and politically active groups, which obviously has been planned for a long time
Up-dated information and the account number for donations: http://antirep2008.lnxnt.org/
EuroMayDay Organizational Group, Vienna
Tags: 278a, MayDay008, Repression
