After accusations of racism by climate activists from the “Fridays for Future” movement against Berlin police officers, the police have now initiated “ex officio” investigations due to the seriousness of the allegations. According to a spokeswoman, the police have not yet received any criminal charges from the climate activists, despite public appeals. It’s about an incident on the evening of July 2 in Kreuzberg.
Did climate activists disturb police officers when they checked drug dealers? Or have climate activists been victims of racist police violence? Fridays for Future even linked the incident a week ago to “racist, capitalist violence destroying tribal lands around the world.” Four young climate activists – “young blacks, indigenous people and people of color” – were surrounded by 20 armed police officers and experienced “brutal, racist police violence”.
One of the activists reported in an Instagram video that he and his companions had seen police officers checking “five black people”. That was racist. They would have watched the events from a distance for five minutes. When the police became more and more aggressive – some of those being checked had to undress – they decided to “use our range” and film the check on their cell phones. Then the activist himself became a victim of racist police violence.
He was laid on the floor and couldn’t breathe anymore, the man continues. A police officer pressed his neck against the ground with his knee. “Don’t be a pussy, be a man,” one official reportedly said. After five minutes he was handcuffed. After about 20 minutes, another police officer came with his confiscated cell phone and forced him to reveal the password, even though he didn’t take a video. After about 30 to 40 minutes he was released without his mobile phone.
The police take the allegations seriously. A week ago, a spokesman had appealed to those affected to put the allegations on record in order to “clarify whether there was any misconduct”. But as of Tuesday, there was no notice.
The police also tried to contact the activist via Instagram, and someone reported back to the department of the State Criminal Police Office responsible for official offenses on Monday who wanted to speak on behalf of the activist – which is not enough. Nevertheless, the police initiated proceedings against officers involved in the operation. Investigated on suspicion of bodily harm and coercion.
So far, the police have presented the process differently: officers checked suspected drug dealers on Skalitzer Strasse around 11:30 p.m. A group of young adults then went “directly into the area of police measures”. The group had been advised that they were not allowed to obstruct the control, but could observe it from a distance. The group initially complied with this, later they came closer and filmed what was happening.
A suspected drug dealer told police he didn’t want to be filmed. When the observers did not stop this despite being asked to do so, the mobile phones were temporarily confiscated. A 19-year-old threw himself around and resisted, so he was fixed. All those affected were then released and given reports of the cell phones being confiscated.
