On this page you will find information on the course of a street blockade or mass occupation and its dissolution, as well as on detention and the possible consequences under criminal law.
At the bottom you will also find an experience report from the first mass blockade on 28.10. - jump down there if you are interested. Actual participation on 25.11.2023 may be different, as this form of protest has not yet been extensively tested and the police do not always follow rules - just so that you keep this in mind when preparing for your protest.
The people from the EA staff a telephone number around the clock, which is always available for you. You take this number with you into the protest and report it if you are taken away by the police, for example (more information on this can be found below).
It is best to write the number on your arm and not on a piece of paper that you might lose: 030 92109146
The Legal Team offers many forms of support in dealing with the consequences of participating in civil disobedience protests.
So, now it's all about what you should have heard in connection with street blockades. For more information, take a look at our Wiki.
A non-registered street blockade is first of all an unregistered, peaceful assembly. This means that it is protected by Article 8 of the Basic Law and is supported by the applicable assembly law. Accordingly, the police are obliged to protect peaceful assemblies as long as they have not been legally dissolved by the police.
If the police arrive and find you have an unregistered assembly, they are likely to allocate an alternative assembly location that is less disruptive than if you were in the middle of the street.
The dissolution of the assembly must be communicated in an understandable way to all participants. Only after this dissolution must all participants leave the place. If the police break up an assembly formally and correctly (which is not always the case), they must make at least three announcements. Only after these announcements does further participation possibly constitute a misdemeanour.
Experience shows, however, that it cannot be promised that the police will not start an investigation, even if you leave before the third announcement.
Here it should still be possible to leave the place of assembly of the dispersed assembly without fear of arrest or criminal consequences.
See first announcement.
If you still do not leave the place of assembly after the third announcement, you must expect to be evicted, as well as possible registration of your identity treatment (= called ED-treatment in German), detention, and the initiation of preliminary proceedings for coercion under section 240 (II) of the Criminal Code and possibly section 113 of the Criminal Code (if you have stuck) - see below.
If you do not get up voluntarily when the police ask you to, they will probably either carry you away or use pain grips (so-called transport techniques) to get you off the street.
If you block the road and do not leave voluntarily, you may be taken directly into custody. The police may also order you to stay in a certain area, such as the police station, for a certain period of time. In order to be legally valid, the expulsion must be sufficiently precise. (limited in time and place - verbal is fine). As a general rule, disobeying a restraining order is not a criminal or administrative offence, but the police can take you into custody to enforce the restraining order. You will then usually be taken to a detention centre (= “Gefangenensammelstelle”), or Gesa for short.
The Gesa is basically any place where you are held against your will by the police for the purpose of detention. This can be, for example, a Gesa cell at a police station, but also just being held in a certain place, like a police kettle in the open air.
General conditions and legal regulations (probably not particularly relevant for Berlin)
Prerequisites for this are also indispensability as an expression of the principle of proportionality. So if compliance with the expulsion would be enforceable by a milder measure, the other measure would have to be taken first. Furthermore, such enforcement of the expulsion is only legally justified if it prevents a criminal offence or misdemeanour of significant importance to the general public. Apparently our blockades are this & accordingly people may be taken to the Gesa.
In Berlin, people can only be held in the Gesa until 24:00 the following day. And only with a court order.
We have certain rights in police custody which can give us security and which we should definitely get!
You do not have to make any statements in the presence of the police. Statements can always incriminate other activists or expose our structure. So make sure you only make small talk and don't say anything about internal agreements, your exact role, etc. Even if you were only support and say that. Even if you were only support and say that, it incriminates the others and gives the police a better chance to justify why you should be punished anyway, whereas otherwise you could just say in court: "but I wasn't sitting on the street", if the police accuse you of that because of a lack of information.
You don't have to sign anything either. And we would also advise you not to sign anything. Simply because in such an exciting situation it can sometimes be difficult to read or understand everything properly.
You are out again & will hopefully be embraced by the Gesa support. Now you should report back to the EA that you are no longer in Gesa and how you are doing. Also, don't forget to write a memory log now.
Further tips for this: /de/oeffentlich/Legal-Wiki/Nach-dem-Protest/nach-dem-protest
If you glue or concrete yourself down or use other methods to "permanently connect" yourself to the road, in addition to the charge of coercion you will also face a charge of resistance under section 113 of the Criminal Code.
Furthermore, you may be charged for your detachment. Up to now, the fees in Berlin have been 241€ per detachment. However, we won a summary proceeding against this type of notice, because a wrong legal basis was used to justify it. However, the main proceedings are still pending - therefore further or different fees can always be charged.
For information on how to deal with fee notices, take a look at the Legal Wiki!
Recently there have been different ways of dealing with our protests by the police. Some units carry you away in a relaxed manner as a pack if you give them the opportunity, and other units use pain holds directly. These pain holds can really hurt. If you still feel pain after your release, make sure you get a doctor's note and report it to the legal team! We collect these incidents.
In such a case, try to remember the unit or number.
At the very moment you take part in a road blockade in Germany, there will be an investigation. Of course, the police may refrain from doing so if there are too many people or they are overwhelmed. This is a phenomenon that we see, for example, in protest marches. These are also not registered, but normally no personal details are taken. Nevertheless, even at larger protests, you should be prepared for the possibility that personal details will be taken (plus detention and preliminary proceedings). Then the police have to pass on their investigation to the German public prosecutor's office.
If this happens, you will eventually receive a "hearing sheet" (which you can ignore if it comes from the police), then later a "penalty order" or an "indictment". It is best to send these letters directly as a scan by e-mail to [email protected]. We will then explain the options and support you. We will then explain the options to you and support you in the further process.
On 28.10.23, the mass blockade was initially recognized as an assembly by the police and had to be protected by them accordingly. After about an hour, the assembly was then restricted to only one lane of the road and the sticking was banned altogether. There were three requests for this. At this point, people gradually stuck to the prohibited lane in small rows of blockades. After three requests, these were then removed one by one and cleared.
This is where the police started to treat people differently.