The German government has had it with anti-oil activists and has now taken the unusual step of charging members of a prominent environmental group with ‘forming a criminal organization’ according to court documents.Earlier this week prosecutors in the state of Brandenburg charged five members of Letzte Generation — Germany’s equivalent to Just Stop Oil — under Section 129 of the German criminal code with subversion normally reserved for organized crime..“There is sufficient suspicion that the five accused agreed with other members of this subgroup to commit crimes together over a long period of time,”German prosecutors.It’s believed to be the first time the law has been applied to an ostensibly non-violent protest group.But according to authorities, the charges relate to more than a dozen “attacks” against oil refineries, the Berlin-Brandenburg airport and the Museum Barberini, in Potsdam, between April 2022 and May 2023.The incidents include protests where supporters attempted to switch off oil pumping stations leading to the refinery, blocked airport runways and threw mashed potatoes at an oil painting by Monet..Prosecutors said led to thousands of arrests against group members in the past two years and was part of a concerted nation-wide campaign.“There is sufficient suspicion that the five accused agreed with other members of this subgroup to commit crimes together over a long period of time,” prosecutors said. “The association of people was not only intended to last for a longer period of time, but also served to pursue an overarching common interest.”.Activist groups, including Amnesty International, warned the charges could have an ant-democratic effect on ‘peaceful’ protests across the European Union country.“With the indictment, the criminalisation of climate protest in Germany reaches a new level of escalation,” Paula Zimmermann, an expert on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly at Amnesty International Germany, said.“We are very concerned about this development and call on the criminal justice system to respect freedom of expression and assembly in its decisions.”In October of 2022, activists from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s famous ‘Sunflowers’ painting and glued themselves to the gallery wall of the British National Gallery.
