Sometimes the little things are tell-tale. A tweet, for example. “What else can you do without being locked away?” asks an angry Twitter user after opponents of the IAA were taken into custody by the police. “Everything, except criminal offenses and administrative offenses,” replied the press office of the Munich Presidium. And who now says: Yes – and? Please pause again for a moment: Locked up because of an administrative offense? So, for example, if someone drives over the traffic light when it is red or drives too fast? In earnest?
In earnest. Of course, it’s not about traffic violations. The controversial Bavarian Police Task Act (PAG) allows preventive detention – but only if it is actually “essential to prevent the imminent commission or continuation of an administrative offense of considerable importance for the general public or a criminal offense”. This preventive detention has been heavily criticized. The next few days will show whether the Munich police want to provide evidence that this criticism was justified.
Unfortunately – beyond flippant tweets – there are indications that exactly that could happen. Young people who take their protest to the streets and squares of Munich, which the city has previously willingly left to the auto industry, are apparently frightened away with indiscriminate “threats”, they are given a slip of paper that says that Crimes do not look good on the résumé, they are searched because they want to visit a climate camp that the police do not like. All of this gives the impression that these people should be placed under general suspicion.
It’s one thing to climb around on highway signs. Judges have decided: the risk of something like this happening again justifies detention until the end of the fair. For Friday, however, blockades around the “Open Spaces” of the IAA have been announced. Granting trade fair visitors free access may be one of the tasks of the police. Yes, it must and will, in case of doubt, carry away blockers. But if she tries to prevent such protests in advance by intimidation or even “locking up”, she is clearly going too far. Despite PAG. Because there is also the Civil Service Status Act. And that dictates that the police perform their duties “impartially and fairly”.