In 1933 the German Nazis created a new law, called 'Preventive Detention' (P.D.), which allows the state to keep people inside prison after they have finished their sentence. The courts in Eastern Germany forbid this law, because it was a 'fascist-law'; the courts in the capitalist West-Germany never had such problems with Nazi-laws, so until today we still have P.D. in Germany – since 1993 in East and West Germany.
I am one of the victims of this Nazi-law, because 17 years ago the court convicted me, a left wing anarchist skin-head, to a long-term sentence, after a bank-robbery to 'fundraise' money for legal and illegal activities. The judges added P.D.
On the 7th of July 2013 I finished my sentence, they were keeping me in solitary confinement from 1996 until 2007, and now they are keeping me in the special-unit for P.D. detainees in Freiburg's prison, a town in the far south-west of Germany, near the French border.
We are 55 male inmates here in Freiburg's P.D. unit (total in Germany: 500 male and 3 female P.D. detainees); we are all long-term inmates. Some of us have lived behind bars for 40 years. The only reason why the state is keeping us in its gaols is that forensic experts believe that we are a threat to public safety.
In 2011 the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that living conditions in the P.D. units violates the Constitution and gave the government a deadline of the 31st May 2013 to change the conditions.
I have now spent more than two months in this P.D. unit, and I can say, it looks like a prison, it feels to me like I am staying in a prison, it is still a prison. There's no substantial difference to the regular prisons.
We have paid for what we have done, and we paid a high price – but to stay in prison, knowing that the sentence has finished, that causes psychological problems. The employees of the prison do their best to bully the inmates every day. Some of us have been living in P.D. units for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and more, without any realistic chance of getting released soon.
In my own case the forensic expert told the court that I had a 'narcissistic personality disorder', that I have refused any forced labour which has a negative effect on the 'prognosis', like the fact that I don't cooperate with the prison and the forensic expert too. He ignores all the social relationships I have and said: these relationships are not important, because I have stayed in prison.
First I should do long-term 'therapy', should cut down the contacts to anarchist comrades, and must cooperate with the administration. For me this is unacceptable – 100% unacceptable. Yes it is important to get free, but I think it is important how I get free too. Not to be outside, side by side with the comrades who are fighting every day, this is hard for me. But I'm sure it would be a bad sign if I started to lick the ass of the members of the administration. This has nothing to do with being a martyr, it has to do with human dignity and faith in political ideals.
I call the P.D. unit here a 'House of Death', because most of the detainees are old and ill men, there's no hope, the people are tired and feel like hostages of an old Nazi-law from 1933. That's the reality of the 'modern' Germany in 2013, the Republic of Mrs Merkel (the German Chancellor), better known as the new dictator of Europe, like the people in Greece believe.
Thomas Meyer-Falk
c/o JVA (SV-Abt)
Hermann-Herder-Str.8
D-79104 Freiburg
Germany
http://www.freedom-for-thomas.de
https://freedomforthomas.wordpress.com
On the 7th of July 2013 I finished my sentence, they were keeping me in solitary confinement from 1996 until 2007, and now they are keeping me in the special-unit for P.D. detainees in Freiburg's prison, a town in the far south-west of Germany, near the French border.
We are 55 male inmates here in Freiburg's P.D. unit (total in Germany: 500 male and 3 female P.D. detainees); we are all long-term inmates. Some of us have lived behind bars for 40 years. The only reason why the state is keeping us in its gaols is that forensic experts believe that we are a threat to public safety.
In 2011 the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that living conditions in the P.D. units violates the Constitution and gave the government a deadline of the 31st May 2013 to change the conditions.
I have now spent more than two months in this P.D. unit, and I can say, it looks like a prison, it feels to me like I am staying in a prison, it is still a prison. There's no substantial difference to the regular prisons.
We have paid for what we have done, and we paid a high price – but to stay in prison, knowing that the sentence has finished, that causes psychological problems. The employees of the prison do their best to bully the inmates every day. Some of us have been living in P.D. units for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and more, without any realistic chance of getting released soon.
In my own case the forensic expert told the court that I had a 'narcissistic personality disorder', that I have refused any forced labour which has a negative effect on the 'prognosis', like the fact that I don't cooperate with the prison and the forensic expert too. He ignores all the social relationships I have and said: these relationships are not important, because I have stayed in prison.
First I should do long-term 'therapy', should cut down the contacts to anarchist comrades, and must cooperate with the administration. For me this is unacceptable – 100% unacceptable. Yes it is important to get free, but I think it is important how I get free too. Not to be outside, side by side with the comrades who are fighting every day, this is hard for me. But I'm sure it would be a bad sign if I started to lick the ass of the members of the administration. This has nothing to do with being a martyr, it has to do with human dignity and faith in political ideals.
I call the P.D. unit here a 'House of Death', because most of the detainees are old and ill men, there's no hope, the people are tired and feel like hostages of an old Nazi-law from 1933. That's the reality of the 'modern' Germany in 2013, the Republic of Mrs Merkel (the German Chancellor), better known as the new dictator of Europe, like the people in Greece believe.
Thomas Meyer-Falk
c/o JVA (SV-Abt)
Hermann-Herder-Str.8
D-79104 Freiburg
Germany
http://www.freedom-for-thomas.de https://freedomforthomas.wordpress.com
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