Option
Nationwide raids in Germany are reminiscent of the animal welfare cause in Austria: it can't be criminal if you use civil disobedience to save the world!
The basis of their actions is completely rational and backed by accepted science. The IPCC also speaks of an absolute climate emergency and clearly states that within 100 years many regions of the earth will no longer be habitable for people if nobody pulls the emergency brake. The activists of the "Last Generation" are people who, unlike most others, take these scientific facts seriously and call for drastic action. It is actually about saving the earth and its inhabitants. The fact that climate activists only block roads and smear protective glasses on works of art to achieve this goal makes them very moderate people. When it comes to saving the earth, far more drastic measures could be justified. This is an emergency, our children and grandchildren are seriously threatened, something has to be done!
The fact that in this situation the Bavarian public prosecutor's office carried out nationwide raids against the local last generation and had the organization's website blocked on the grounds that it is (without the subjunctive!) a criminal organization, is deeply shocking. This is exactly how one proceeds against critical civil society in dictatorships like Russia and Belarus. Yes, the public prosecutor's office in Munich even says that anyone who donates to the last generation is liable to prosecution. So they shouldn't even be helped against state repression without becoming a criminal yourself. The VGT protests violently against this criminalization of vital activism and shows solidarity with the climate activists affected.
VGT Chairman DDr. Martin Balluch himself was the main suspect in the animal welfare cause 2008-2011 and had to spend 105 days in custody: You may think that frequent roadblocks are the wrong way to get society to take more drastic action on climate change, but that doesn't make them criminal. Civil disobedience, carried out as openly as by the last generation, has a long tradition in western democracies. The background is also a real climate emergency, life on earth is seriously threatened. Blaming the bearers of this message in this situation, instead of those who hold the levers of power but do nothing, is the wrong way to go. What specifically did the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office contribute to saving humanity from climate change? If they now take violent action against the only ones who are committed to this rescue, then we are doomed. Who is to turn things around? I am deeply appalled by so much intransigence and brutality on the part of the state power!
