On Wednesday, police operations were carried out in Berlin and Athens against libraries and anarchist militants both in the city and in the province. In the words of its members, “it is nothing new.” On this occasion, however, they have admitted that power is "stepping up efforts" to avoid the referendum. According to the Enough 14 portal, the repression has targeted five people and has caused material damage.

They are accused of "special, conspiratorial and criminal association." That is why the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Germany has opened an investigation and ordered the sending of police forces to the houses of political militants, threatening in some cases with firearms.

Criminalisation

Members of the libertarian movement have denounced that this is an operation "based on fantastic risk and other kind of absurd investigation procedures". Under a similar procedure, another library was registered in 2018. The aim of the operation was to identify and investigate those responsible for the counter-attack that was formed at the G20 summit in Hamburg. In most democratic constitutions and international legislation, interventions against libraries are identified as "dangerous violations of fundamental human rights", especially since World War II.

Records

In all records, as usual, the police seized means of storage, computers, mobiles, black clothes and other effects that had been subtracted. Anarchist circles have stressed that “the special interest they have given mobile phones is interesting,” as the latter were taken by the German Federal Criminal Police (PFK) separately to be evaluated before the records are completed. In some cases, the PFK used seven hours in the apartment records and five hours in the Berlin anarchist library Kalabalik.

Raids also in Athens

In addition, it appears that this is a joint international operation, as in Athens, the PFK registered two apartments in cooperation with the Greek anti-terrorist police. There, five people were arrested and transferred to the headquarters of the State Joint Investigations Society (GTA). Three of them, still under observation, will be transferred to the courts on Thursday for an alleged crime of holding and depositing piperal sprays.

Uninterrupted repression

Berlin and Athens are not the only cities affected by the repression; in fact, the incessant police interventions against left-wing extra-parliamentary groups have featured in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Leipzig.