Wiretapping – Dark Nights

Back in the distant 2007, at a time of underlying and subtle social processes that would culminate in the December 2008 uprising, the authorities were looking after one of their favourite children. George Voulgarakis, a member of the deepest party-apparatus of New Democracy and Minister of Public Order, is caught up in the maelstrom of phone tapping scandals and ‘disappearances’ of Pakistani migrants and refugees. The state, however, always takes care of its children and Voulgarakis goes on “vacation”, away from the “hot potato” of the Ministry of Public Order, taking over the “loose” Ministry of Culture.

But some people do not forget and do not forgive. At 10:00am on July 3, 2007, a few hours after Voulgarakis and his police escort arrived at the ministry on Bouboulinas Street, they were attacked by a group of twenty comrades, with Molotov cocktails and a bag full of gasoline canisters and camping gas canisters, that fell into Voulgarakis’ own vehicle. The policemen open fire on the comrades, only thus managing to make them retreat.

In the text in which they claimed responsibility, they state:

“The attack on Culture Minister G. Voulgarakis was carried out as a sign of solidarity with the imprisoned militants. The Minister of Culture was chosen because a representative of the government is always a target of militants, let alone when he has served as Minister of Public Order and his term of office has remained unforgettable. He was the political head of the Ministry of Order when he intercepted and monitored the conversations of hundreds of citizens through vodafone. He was the political head of the Ministry of Order and responsible for the abduction and interrogation of dozens of Pakistani migrants. Finally, under the orders of Voulgarakis and on the occasion of the robbery of the National Bank in January 2006, for which Yannis Dimitrakis is on trial on 6 July, the anti-authoritarian movement was subjected to one of the most furious assaults of recent years with pogroms, kidnappings, slander, smears and finally prosecutions of anarchists. Freedom to those imprisoned in the cells. Solidarity to all persecuted comrades. As for their shooting, deliberately at point blank range and not in the air, the cops had better be careful because such moves can be met with the same price.”
Continue reading “Greece: ‘To break the codes of repression’, Financial support for court expenses of comrade Kostas K. EN/GR” →

In the following we want to inform you about a procedure according to §129 in Hamburg and Bremen, describe the collective handling of it and give space to individual voices of affected people.

In summer, some people in Hamburg and Bremen opened their mailboxes and there they were again: letters from the Chief Public Prosecutor Schakau of the General Prosecutor’s Office in Hamburg. From 26.05.2020 to 25.07.2022 investigations of different authorities in a §129-procedure against anarchists in Hamburg and Bremen took place. It was about an association construct to which direct actions, mainly in Hamburg, should be assigned over a longer period of time.
Three of the five people against whom the investigations were mainly directed had already been convicted in 2020 in the so-called Parkbank proceedings and were the three official defendants in these proceedings. In the course of the investigation, two other people were selected as potential members of the constructed association, who were similarly investigated.
It all starts (for us) with a report from the BKA to the Attorney General’s Office suggesting proceedings under §129a (formation of a terrorist organization) against the three defendants. However, this is rejected by Attorney General Geilhorn, as are proceedings under §129 (formation of a criminal organization) at the federal level.
One day later, proceedings under §129 begin in Hamburg, led by Chief Public Prosecutor Schakau. In the course of these investigations, measures are initiated against all five suspects of membership; these run from the beginning of May to the beginning of August 2021 and include observations with photo and video recordings, telecommunications surveillance (tapping telephone conversations and reading text messages), the use of IMSI catchers and silent text messages, as well as Internet surveillance (especially the reading of all known and accessible e-mail inboxes).

In the course of this, a large part of the environments of the five defendants were investigated and a large number of people were affected by almost all of the measures. In this context, it should be mentioned that there were at least two people who were not constructed as (potential) members, whose phones were tapped separately with harebrained explanations. It should also be mentioned that the observations and wiretapping measures took place across federal states (Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Bavaria and Saxony) and in several cases by administrative assistance also in other European countries (Austria, Belgium and Spain).
Ultimately, the proceedings are discontinued on 25.07.2022, officially for lack of evidence. “Officially”, because of course – as we know – parallel surveillance against some defendants also took place according to other paragraphs, also under the sign of police “danger defense”. A more detailed processing of the investigations in the sense of “files for all” will be given elsewhere and at a later time. Continue reading “Germany: All my friends are bad kids! – about a (meanwhile discontinued) §129-proceeding against anarchists in Hamburg and Bremen” →