Since May 21 2008 ten animal rights activists have been sitting in pre-trial detention spread out over three states (Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland). The reasons for the detention are now as before Danger of Destruction of Evidence and Danger of Committing (Further) Crimes. As Danger of Destruction of Evidence can only justify pre-trial detainment for up to the first two months of detainment, this reasoning will cease to apply on July 21 at the absolute latest. With the reasoning of Danger of Committing a Crime – which is based on the fact that the accused have been active in the animal rights scene for years and stand by their ideals – detention can be extended for up to a year.

At this point we are waiting for the results of the complaint against the pre-trial incarceration, which was pressed by the attorneys several weeks ago. This means that a higher court responsible for the district court of Wiener Neustadt, namely the Appellate Court of Vienna, will decide on the legality of the pre-trial incarceration based on the records. A new hearing for the accused is not however intended; the complaint against the detention is namely a purely written procedure. Should the Appellate Court come to the decision that the pre-trial detention is unjustified, then all ten of the accused are to be released immediately. If, on the other hand, the complaint against the detention is rejected, then the next examination of the detention will take place in two months, which would be the beginning of September. In other words, the next chance they will be released will be in September after more than four months of pre-trial detention.

The decision of the Appellate Court will be interesting. According to the current state of knowledge as regards the record, the evidence continues to be more than lacking. Some of the purported arsons of the “criminal organization”, which were at first massively spread about in the media, are mentioned in the files only as yet another unsolved “attack” without any connection to the accused. The extent of the property damage, which was originally valued in the media at 800,000 €, has been reduced down to 300,000€, and we must expect that the rough estimation of the prosecution will shrink further as there are no clues to be found in the documents as to the exact composition of this sum. Other crimes allegedly perpetrated by the “criminal organization”, for example a dangerous threat involving the distribution of poisoned toothpaste, have completely disappeared. The previous example illustrates yet again the arbitrariness with which unsolved crimes are randomly tossed together in order to construct a criminal organization. The other crimes mentioned in the files are all in all small potatoes, such as the smashing of a window or spray-painting graffiti, which would fall under local district jurisdiction and would probably be settled out of court without jail time.

There is still no statement from the prosecution as to exactly how the alleged criminal organization is structured such that it falls under §278a of the Criminal Code and thereby also justifies the detentions. The suspicion that the investigations were a shot in the dark, that the evaluation of the evidence brought nothing to light and that the fact that the accused have executed their right to remain silent has led to the accusation that they are not willing to cooperate because they continue to refuse to reveal their passwords and codes for encrypted hard drives and e-mails is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental and constitutionally protected rights are being undermined and political activists are being presented as criminals. Legal activism done over years, such as campaign work, participation in protests, the writing of fliers or the public appearance at podium discussions, is being bent into evidence for supposed criminal actions. The fact that the accused had publicly accessible information about animal enterprises, company management, board members or spokespeople lying around at home is now being interpreted against them as highly suspicious. What is thereby overlooked is that every NGO in the course of a campaign does completely legal research about the relevant public figures and organizations in order to figure out where and in what form protest makes sense and can be effective. Also the accusation that they tried to shield themselves from criminal investigations could be applied against anyone: of course we use PGP encryption, pre-paid cell phones and turn them off during meetings or leave them at home – who wants to carry a tracking device around with them?

By the way, the German Federal Agency for IT-Security encourages exactly that which would fall under the category of “Shielding against a criminal investigation” to prevent corporate espionage. Moreover, the German Interior Ministry has funded the open source alternative to PGP, GNUPG and its further development for years.
We must assume that law enforcement officials are spying on a large scale – independently from animal rights activism and the accused people along with their political groups and social circle as well as parts of the solidarity structures for the accused – by means of wiretapping and other methods that were recently made legal under a new police law (Telephone and Cell phone eavesdropping, Locating people, determining patterns of movement, evaluating public and private surveillance cameras, internet surveillance, e-mail scanning…). Thus there are explanations and texts from the legal support team as well as print-outs from no-racism.net and at.indymedia.org in the files.

Furthermore we anticipate that people may soon receive summons to go to the police or the prosecution because the authorities (since they have not received any information from the people being detained) hope for further information to support their fantasies of a criminal organization. Should this happen, get in touch with the legal support team!

Remaining silent is not only a right but also a political tool to protect our structures and work – get informed about it and apply it!

§278a is being used here just as §129a and b in Germany: to criminalize politically active people, to launch massive investigations against them, to spy and to intimidate. We refuse to let ourselves intimidated, but rather the opposite: the many actions all over the world are part of the wave of solidarity with the 10 people in prison and those also targeted by the house searches.

Everyone out of jail immediately!

Not talking to authorities is a weapon!
We are all §278a!