The ads against climate activists who protested against the auto show rarely lead to penalties. Insulting a police officer against a photographer also goes unpunished.
The nervousness was great before the first IAA motor show in Munich, especially among the police and Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). He warned against a “Europe-wide mobilization from the left-wing extremist and left-wing autonomous spectrum”. Thousands of police officers were on duty in September 2021. Now it turns out that it wasn’t nearly as bad compared to the penalties that have been imposed so far.
The Greens in the state parliament wanted to know from the state government what came out of the criminal complaints. No one knows for sure, answers the Ministry of the Interior, which was so alarmed in the run-up to the IAA. There are no suitable “research parameters” to search through police statistics, “no valid statements” are possible. In order to find out the exact details, such a great manual effort would be necessary that this would endanger the “state’s protective mandate” towards its citizens.
The ministry is at least getting closer to the requested answer and is presenting a table with 91 lines. The list only refers to events during the registered demos. A selection: 41 times it says trespassing, 39 times it was stopped by the public prosecutor’s office, once there was a warning and a small fine, once a judge’s instruction. Eight of 14 charges of coercion were dropped and five were fined in court. Charges have been brought 15 times for dangerous intervention in road traffic, decisions are pending. Four out of five cases of assaulting law enforcement officials were dropped. Two insults were punished with fines of 30 and 50 daily rates. It is not specified which incidents are involved.
There is also another, very special insult: on a video, a police officer can be heard calling a press representative “photo wanker” in conversation with a colleague. Because no injured person was found, the public prosecutor’s office did not initiate any investigation.
Even if the picture remains blurred, the Munich Greens deputy Florian Siekmann is certain: “The scaremongering by the CSU before the riots and riots was completely exaggerated.” The protest was largely peaceful. With regard to the next IAA, the Munich Greens leader Svenja Jarchow, whose party belongs to the Munich city government, praises the minor restrictions: “It’s good that the city council is making less of the scarce public space in the city center available for the IAA.”