4 ms·
FYI check your local laws, this is almost certainly criminal in at least some places (e.g. in Germany it's illegal to "wear things which may prevent or interfer
by formerly_proven 4y ago
FYI check your local laws, this is almost certainly criminal in at least some places (e.g. in Germany it's illegal to "wear things which may prevent or interfere with identification of protestors" and to "carry items meant to interfere with identification", this clearly meets those criteria).
- mattigames 4y agoQuite dystopian of germany to target protesters this way, reminds me of the time they made some people wear a star for easy identification.
- hezralig 4y agoWith that being said, it is not illegal to attempt / to succeed at escaping a imprisonment as the will to be free is an unalienable human right under German law.
- eru 4y agoSources?
- formerly_proven 4y agoGerman police usually has a bunch of people (and cars with pole-mounted cameras) running around with cameras filming everyone at regular protests; you'd think nothing can happen without being taped. Except of course it often goes <FOOTAGE MISSING> when it gets interesting, seems to be a technical issue. Just like bodycams suddenly failing to work. Oh well
- concordDance 4y agoQuantify "often" please?
- formerly_proven 4y agoThe primary qualifier here is this isn't American police. Use of force, excessive use of force, and lethal use of force are much, much rarer here. Police kills about a dozen people per year. Not over a thousand. Though worryingly this number has risen a lot in the last couple years, it used to be more like half a dozen ten years ago. Regardless, when it happens, it's still a police force, so you still have esprit de corps, "blue wall of silence" and "DA doesn't feel like prosecuting people they work with day to day" effects, and evidence is quite frequently not gathered or "gets lost". So for example if there is excessive use of force at a protest it wouldn't be unusual for those recordings to be misplaced. Bodycams aren't universal yet, but they're always somehow turned off during excessive use of force. The latest example would be a 16yo refugee who was shot dead with an MP5 (i.e. not standard-issue-24/7-belt-carry for police, something you have to get from the car), all officers had bodycams, no recordings. Five officers were charged with various things (up to 2nd degree homicide) because a citizen made an audio recording of the police action (which is a felony btw.), revealing contradictory and false statements.
- concordDance 4y agoMy googling has been failing to find info about the bodycams etc in this case. Do you have a link? Additionally, do you have any figures, even very approximate, for what proportion of the time police bodycams are worn and on and what proportion of incidents have said camera turned off? This helps see if there's a real mismatch/incidence of corruption here.
- Psychoshy_bc1q 4y agoTechnically its illegal, but look at the antifa protests; nobody cares if you are on the left spectrum
- konha 4y agoIn Germany? “Some people in the crowd started to mask their faces“ is THE excuse for authorities to stop protests. You cannot seriously argue this doesn’t happen at e.g. 1st of May protests.
- eru 4y agoWell, if protestors are engaging in illegal activities, they should be stopped. [0] And putting on masks to obscure your face is illegal in protests in Germany. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermummungsverbot https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermummungsverbot [0] I mean that in a legal sense, that's how the police works. Whether stopping the protest is morally the right thing to do or not is a different issue that I don't want to address here.
- konha 4y agoI don’t disagree. Parent said it doesn’t happen, that’s what I commented on.
- formerly_proven 4y agoIf you think German police(*) of all police forces goes easy on lefties you are completely delusional. (*) The generalization is okay in this context, because behavior is pretty uniform and larger protests will have riot police pulled from other states anyway.