"Vienna / Austria - 17. July 2008 - Appellate Court Judge Dr. Ingrid Jelinek rejected all appeals against the detention in remand prison of 10 Austrian animal rights advocates and confirmed thereby the lower court's ruling to extend the detention for further two months. The next date for a possible revision is the 11. September 2008. She ruled that the danger of collusion as well as the danger to commit an offence or criminal act would persist and that there is reasonable believe the animal rights activists had formed or participated in a criminal organization.

The defence lawyer Michael Dohr issued an immediate statement and claimed that the judge is obviously not even aware that the Senior Public Prosecutor had already removed the most severe accusations from the charge sheet as not valid. Out of the 112 pages ruling only 5 pages look into the most severe accusation concerning the alleged formation of a criminal organisation, while most of the pages of the document just contain legal comments copied from legal annotations. Judge Jelinek, who had earlier wanted to escape into her summer holidays without even delivering a ruling, obviously has made it for herself easy by just stumbling this ruling superfluously together. That she will have to face a revision is also clear.

The tenor of the ruling pointed out that the most serious misdeeds are seen in the prolonged campaigns against fur-trading retailers and that companies like Peek & Cloppenburg, Fürnkranz, Schös and Zara were forced out of this business i.a. with the application of stink-bombs. Thereby the activists had gained influence by unlawful means on the economic freedom and the business success as a whole.

Monika Nowak, speaker of the NGO Legal Aid, stated that the confirmation of keeping the animal activists in remand prison is a scandal and this justice scandal is now perfect, because it opens the door for the further criminalization of non-governmental organizations. "Its a scandal that the danger of collusion is seen as given due to the encryption of e-mails and the danger to commit further offences is based on the long-term political activism of the detainees.", Nowak said. The scandal is further completed by the renewed offer to the detainees to be set free, if they would provide thee passwords for their encrypted mails and it was seen by the appellate judge negatively that the accused stood their ground also concerning their legally enshrined right not to testify.

Since no evidence has been brought forward, which proves any wrongdoing, it has become evident now that the jailed activists actually are put into a form of coercive detention, which is illegal in Austria.

Monika Nowak proclaimed that she requests the immediate release of the detainees and the complete and independent investigation of the political background in this criminalization campaign carried out by police and judiciary."

Please sign the petitions if you haven't done it yet:
 http://www.vgt.at/actionalert/repression/petition/index_en.php
 http://www.thepetitionsite.com/8/freedom-for-the-austrian-activists

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