MADRID, 6 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has defended the need to toughen sanctions up to and including prison sentences for protest actions by activists from environmental groups and the fight against climate change.
In recent weeks works of art in museums in Berlin, London, Rome, Amsterdam or Madrid have been attacked with tomato soup, mashed potatoes, mashed peas or fake blood and in Germany the actions of Letzte Generation (Last Generation ) hugging the roadway for traffic.
The CDU hopes to present a legislative initiative in the Bundestag next week, according to the newspaper ‘Bild am Sonntag’. The text provides for short prison sentences for those who intentionally cut off traffic or obstruct the transit of emergency services, firefighters or police vehicles.
It also provides for the possibility of preventive detention if there is a risk of recidivism and harsher penalties for damage or destruction of cultural property, hitherto sanctioned with a fine.
Activists “must not have a license to commit crimes”, argued the CDU spokesman in Parliament, Alexander Dobrindt, in statements to ‘Bild am Sonntag’. These harsher sentences could help “counter further radicalization of this climate movement and set an example for copycats.”
One of the most criticized incidents is in which a cyclist died on Thursday after being hit by a truck in Berlin. The ambulance was unable to get past a blockade by climate activists on its way to the crash site, although medical sources warn that she could not have done much for her life even without the blockade.
In Berlin alone there are 700 open proceedings against climate activists and criminal charges have been filed against two of them for participating in the blockade for a crime of denial of aid.
