Austrian Prisoners Released!

[Guest guest]

*Statement from Martin Balluch after his release:*

 

It's now been a week since I was released from prison. 104 days in a prison

cell are over! It is seriously shocking to see how far police repression

will be taken in order to stop legitimate and successful protest for animals

in the name of a majority of the population, just because it runs contrary

to the profit interests of a powerful minority.

 

Many many thanks to each and every one of you for all you have done for me.

I am deeply humbled by the immense amount of solidarity and support we

prisoners have received from the international animal's rights community.

 

I was released without the keys to my home, my car or my office being

returned to me. I was also not given my computer, access to my bank account

or even my wrist watch! If it had not been for friendly folk supporting me,

I would have had to sleep rough during the last week, without any money. Our

office – and the offices of 6 other animal rights groups – are still empty.

Nothing has been handed back so far, no video material or photo cameras, no

computers, no data of our membership, no photo- or film archives, and no

book keeping. The intention is obvious: since the jailing of us had to be

stopped, depriving us of any material is the next move to silence VGT and

prevent us from being effectively active.

 

* Let me briefly remind you how all this came about.*

 

In 1997, we developed the idea in Austria of confrontative – but fully legal

– grass roots campaigns including all means of civil disobedience in order

to achieve reformist changes. The campaign targets were pragmatically chosen

on the grounds of being practically achievable and supported by a majority

of the electorate. The aim was, though, to see real changes, and not just

symbolic gestures, i.e. changes that would make a world of a difference for

the animals concerned – and for the people exploiting them.

 

In 1998, fur farming was banned and 43 fur farms had to close down. By 2002,

a law had been introduced to ban all wild animals in circuses. In 2004, the

campaign to ban cages for laying hens – including enriched ones – reached

its peak. It was then that powerful interest groups felt our pressure for

the first time. We confronted the governing Conservative Party, which was

the only party opposed to a battery farm ban, during 2 provincial and 1

presidential election. The agricultural spokesperson of the Conservatives in

the southernmost province reacted so angrily to our anti-election rally,

that he actually attacked me on the podium during my speech and punched me

in the face. The Conservatives lost all 3 elections and eventually gave in

to the pressure. From that time onwards, it was not only death threats by

farmers and their agents that became part of our lives. The secret service

was put on our tracks. No demo went by without plain clothes guys with

listening devices, watching and photographing us.

 

But the ministry of the interior went ever further. Our demos were banned to

a large extent, we were fined huge amounts of money for the most minor law

infringements and the ministry warned all schools about our " radicalism " . In

addition, in 2005 the secret service arranged for a raid on our office to

secure our accounts to try to charge us with some kind of tax fraud. We now

have documents of meetings between secret service agents and our political

enemy whereby they discuss suggested strategies against our demos and

actions and arrange for coordinated media work to libel us. A spokesperson

of the secret service called animal rights the biggest threat to national

security and the minister of the interior named VGT publicly as a violent

organisation.

 

When, on 2 occasions, some criminal damage was done to a car and the shop of

a furrier, the secret service aided the furrier in publicising this damage

widely in order to set up animal rights groups like VGT for being the target

of police attacks in the future. Also, contrary to the spirit of the

constitution, secret service advised our political enemy to register demos

at places where we wanted to do demos, in order to give police a reason to

ban our demos as, on paper, the space is already " booked " . These pseudo

demos never actually took place.

 

When all this didn't do the trick, another step of escalation was decided

upon. At the end of 2006, the owners of Kleider Bauer and representatives of

the Conservatives as well as high ranking police officers met and spoke

about how to destroy VGT. The minutes of those meetings are now in our hands

and make for gruesome reading. It says that there is no evidence of any

criminal wrongdoing and that banning our demos cannot be upheld, so a

special police unit consisting of more than 32 agents from the secret

service, the murder division and from the anti-terror police locally and

nationally was formed with the sole purpose of framing us.

 

This special unit started the largest operation of spying on political

activists ever conducted since World War 2. For almost 2 years, 2 private

houses, a pub as a meeting place as well as the VGT office were bugged. The

telephone and the email conversation of more than 30 people were listened in

on. Two cars, among them mine, had tracking devices put on them. 17 people

were followed and watched 24 hours a day. 3 private homes had video cameras

filming their entrances. And undercover agents were put into VGT to

infiltrate us. Further, more than a dozen potential targets of animal rights

activists were under permanent surveillance.

 

To justify this operation, secret service drew up a list of 240 acts of

criminal damage and arson (including ripping up illegal circus posters) from

the last 13 years, which might have had something to do with animal rights,

and claimed there was one big international criminal organisation

responsible for all of them. In order to inflate the damage, a number of

cases of accidental fire were presented as animal rights related arson, and

one butyric acid attack on a Kleider Bauer shop was enlarged to a damage of

500,000 euro, which later led to civil law suits because the insurance

company made it clear that this figure was about 50 times too large. Most

likely, that was another dirty trick out of the hat of the secret service,

to inflate the damage out of proportion in order to be able to justify a

violent police attack later on.

 

Since by May 2008, this huge surveillance operation had not come up with any

hint of any criminal activity, the ministry of the interior escalated the

police terror even further. On 21st May 2008, 23 police squads of between 30

and 50 officers each attacked as many homes and offices of animal rights

activists in the early morning hours. The doors were smashed open and masked

officers surrounded people in their beds pointing guns at their heads and

went on to turn the places upside down. Since the law against criminal

organisations, which was used in this case to justify the operation, states

that at least 10 members are necessary to make the law applicable, exactly

10 people were put on remand while almost 40 were arrested and questioned

for up to 10 hours.

 

Since police and public prosecution had absolutely no evidence against any

of us, they spoke to media as well as the judges responsible for extending

the incarceration and pretended that they had a huge amount of evidence, but

it had to be kept secret since the operation and investigations were

ongoing.

 

The judges complied and continually extended the remand detention without

any charges being brought due to there being suspicion of a criminal

organisation. This suspicion was described as follows:

 

· The use of non-public internet platforms to discuss issues

 

· Encryption of emails and computers

 

· The use of non-registered fully legal mobile phones

 

· The expression of supposedly radical opinions on internet discussions in

the last 11 years

 

· Campaign work involving emails which demand changes and threaten the use

of demos

 

· International contacts, especially international meetings and gatherings

with foreign animal rights activists

 

This utterly ludicrous list of " evidence " of suspicion of a criminal

organisation was seriously put forward by the judges to extend the remand

detention. No criminal act was in any way connected to the 10 held in

prison, but the judges argued that this was not necessary. The criminal acts

were committed with the same spirit – to further animal rights – and that

was sufficient. The mere existence of criminal acts committed somewhere at

some time by persons unknown completely unconnected to the accused was used

to turn legal groups into supposedly criminal ones. That criminal acts were

never the issue is proven by internal protocols that surfaced, which showed

that the special police unit concerned with the case had met 4 weeks into

our prison stay to debate nothing but the issue how to further damage VGT. A

number of ideas were put forward and an additional meeting on the same topic

was agreed upon for 4 days later. Obviously, the question on how to destroy

VGT – and not how to solve any crime – was highest priority in police

meetings.

 

But police and state prosecution lost the media battle for public sympathy.

An unprecedented wave of international protests in front of Austrian

embassies in countless countries shamed the Austrian government. Throughout

the whole 104 days of incarceration, daily demos were held outside the

prisons and additional vigils and protests took place, including large

protest marches drawing in 800 participants. The Green Party and the Social

Democrats criticized the police actions with increasing impatience. A huge

amount of protest letters were sent to the ministry of justice as well as to

other politicians, heads of state and newspapers. Eventually, the Green

Party decided to nominate myself as a candidate for the next Parliamentary

elections.

 

At this stage, there was no sign of any legal moves succeeding in liberating

the imprisoned. The case of whether the remand imprisonment was legal is

still pending at the Supreme Court. A decision is expected within the next

2-4 weeks. In the meantime, political pressure was mounting, which suddenly

led to our release on 2^nd September, after 104 days.

 

The release was not justified by stating that there is no evidence, albeit

that this is so obviously the case. The release was instead justified by

saying that the time already spent in prison was out of proportion with the

prison sentences expected if a guilty verdict were reached.

 

A weird move to save face! Instead of saying the truth that there is no

evidence, the reference to an expected sentence was used, although the

charge of criminal organisation carries a maximum sentence of 5 years – and

arson 10 years.

 

The case is not over yet, though. The damage has been done, the threat of

the law §278a criminal organisation is still looming above anyone being

politically active. We are still accused, even if not charged. However, the

longer this status is being drawn out, the longer police have the

opportunity to claim that we are serious suspects, which they widely do in

the press. A political trial would have the media watching, and then this

ludicrous " evidence " would not stand a chance. In order to safeguard animal

rights activism and, more generally, political activism in Austria, 3 things

must be achieved. Firstly, those responsible for this police terror must be

brought to account for what they did. Secondly, the damage inflicted must be

fully compensated for. And thirdly, the law §278a must be revoked.

 

Exactly 40 years ago, the tanks of the then Soviet Union broke into the

Czechoslovakian Republic to destroy with violence what has been called the

" Prague Spring " , the new socialist system with a humane attitude. Dissidents

were locked up and the tiny seedlings of a new society were violently

uprooted. This attack on fundamental basic rights has been justly criticized

all over the globe. Western democracies boast of being so different and

defending liberal principles. But our case proves them wrong. New laws

including bans on fur and battery farming, as well as the removal of fur and

battery eggs from ever more department stores and supermarkets, were the

animal rights seedlings marking the dawn of a new attitude. Dissident animal

rights thinking was infiltrating ever more areas of society. And the tanks

of a " democratic " system smashed it all up, and locked up the most active

critical thinkers.

 

Yes, we have the right to free speech and to protest and to associate

freely. But those freedoms end when they are used to effectively change

society. You can express your opinion – as long as not enough people listen

and act correspondingly. You can protest – as long as profits are not

touched by it. And you can freely associate – as long as you only debate and

do not influence society significantly by action. Austria has a relatively

low level of animal rights related criminal activity, but a very high level

of animal rights related successes. And Austria saw the largest and most

violent police operation ever conducted against animal rights anywhere and

anytime in the world. Is it not obvious that there is a direct connection?

 

Internal papers clearly reveal that the senior officers in the secret

service consider any effect of political campaigning outside Parliament a

threat to national security. Only Parliament is justified to direct society

through electoral majorities. Political pressure from groups outside

Parliament are not justified in principle, and therefore amount to

terrorism.

 

If social activism seriously affects the profits of powerful cliques, the

secret service is set in motion to smash this movement. However, in reality,

outer parliamentarian pressure groups are the most important corrective of

the abuse of power by influential cliques, they are the lifeblood of

democracy and the safeguard to national security. Indeed, it is the secret

service that poses the biggest threat to our constitution.

 

But so far, police violence has had the opposite effect on our movement than

what they aimed for. We now have more activists than ever before. Animal

rights is being taken seriously as a new social movement. It is being talked

about everywhere. And the public sympathises ever more with us. Since having

been released from prison, I have been approached countless times on the

streets by strangers who congratulated me and wished me luck, and many even

put money into my hands. People, who I mostly do not know, bought me a new

computer, a watch, a mobile phone and a bike and even offered me a new flat

to live in for a while. The bike shop gave me a 100-Euro-bikelock for free

in solidarity.

 

The movement stood up in solidarity behind us prisoners. Now, as a movement

we are more united and willing to cooperate than ever before. And the events

prove beyond any doubt that our approach to achieving animal rights in the

long run is effective. If the reforms we achieved had been welcomed by

animal industries, surely they would not have sent the boys round to punch

us up.

 

This year, our campaigns might have suffered a drawback. But when the case

is won, we will push on with more energy than ever before. I am determined

to see this through and am looking forward to new advances towards animal

rights in the years ahead.

 

 

--

KB

~XX~

 

SAVE THE CAPE FUR SEALS http://namibia2007.wordpress.com/

www.myspace.com/kerbear_

http://www.gesarfoundation.org/index.php?id=2898

 

" It is time we as a species stopped using the old cultural relativism

argument. It has been used for centuries to delay social progress, if we all

maintained our original culture all humans would still be living in caves. "