Homes of antifascists raided in Germany after protest against AfD party conference
At 6 in the morning on March 15th the house of antifascists was raided in the city of Karlsruhe in Baden-Württemberg in the southwest Germany. According to Dem Volke Dienen, the police stormed the apartment with a battering ram and sub-machine guns and tied the person to their bed. The raid lasted around two hours and all electronic devices and storage media was confiscated, afterwards the antifascist was handcuffed and taken to the police station for identification.
The antifascist was accused of illegal appropriation and the publishing of internal police documents in connection to antifascist protests against the party conference of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) on March 4th in the city of Offenburg in Baden-Württemberg.
According to another article on Dem Volke Dienen, the protest counted in total between 1400 to 1500 people. The police tried to stop the demonstration with massive use of batons, but the protesters fought back.
According to the regional newspaper BNN the protest left 53 police officers injured. 17 of them were declared temporarily unfit for duty because of the injuries. According to official data, they were kicked and beaten and some of their tear gas cartridges were set on fire. In addition to this the police lost a baton, the back identification of one of the officers and internal police documents. The baton and identification was retried by the police, but they were not able to retrieve the documents.
The documents were later published on the media platform indymedia and included the entire strategy of the police regarding the protest against the AfD conference, as well as several phone numbers of police officers and other institutions that were involved in the operation.
According to a statement published by the Open Antifascist Meeting Karlsruhe, the police raid is an attempt to legitimize their handling of the situation:
“The fact that the state is acting with such harshness in this matter shows us that the Offenburg cops are under a lot of pressure. After they had already gotten in trouble with the confrontation on the street of Offenburg, they were further disgraced by the public reporting in different media (https://bnn.de/mittelbaden/ortenau/randale-in-offenburg-verschwundene-unterlagen-tauchen-im-internet-auf) on the subject of their data breach. Now they try to legitimize their behavior by their rabid action against our movement in the aftermath.”
