Extract from article published by DW on 25/06/2023 – accessible here.
Munich investigators have been tapping various communications by the Last Generation climate activist group, Munich’s public prosecutor confirmed on Sunday, following media reports about the surveillance.
This includes phones, emails, and voicemails linked to the group or some of its members, the prosecutor told German news agency dpa on Sunday.
Bavarian authorities are currently investigating the group on the preliminary suspicion of forming or supporting a criminal organization. The investigation follows Last Generation’s campaign of public climate-related protests, often involving either blocking traffic on roads or throwing liquids or paint on works of art, and more recently on buildings, private planes, and private boats.
Munich-based daily newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung first broke the story earlier in the week, saying the process had begun last October. It said the phone lines monitored included the climate activist group’s press hotline.
This weekend, Last Generation issued a statement calling the monitoring unnecessary and dismissing criminal investigations against the group as baseless.
“We protest giving our names and showing our faces, publish our plans, and accept the legal consequences,” the group wrote on Twitter. “Nevertheless Bavaria’s LKA [regional criminal investigative police] protocols our telephone calls, emails and tracks our movements. Even our press phone line was spied on. That is absurd!”