Kurtulus: The anti-terror laws in Europe

[english at ozgurlluk.xs4all.nl]

Kurtulus no. 50 
11th october 1997

The anti-terror laws in Europe

Anti-terror laws are on the agenda in every European country. Today a
new anti-terror law is about to be voted on in Belgium.  This is not a
new situation. All over the world there are special laws by
imperialists or fascist dictators against revolutionary or liberation
movements. Most of them are even called the same thing: "anti-terror
laws".
All of them criminalise liberation movements in a way that offends
against even the warped system of justice in these countries, all of
them "condemn" and "sentence" them in a special way. Their aim is to
fight against a revolutionary organisation or a liberation movement
that is struggling against the state. To eliminate those movements and
organisations, they do things which show that "bourgeois democracy" is
a fairy tale.
German imperialism was one of the first among Europe to take steps in that
direction. As with Paragraph 129, revolutionary organisations faced a lot of
special anti-democratic legislation. In the 1950s the Communist Party of 
Germany [KPD] was forbidden by the German state and
condemned to be inactive after a long period of illegality. In this
period Paragraph 129 was used against revolutionaries. This paragraph is 
similar to paragraphs 168 and 169 of the Turkish penal laws. Instead of the
expression "armed gangs", in the Turkish laws the expression "criminal 
gangs" is used. 
But in 1976 this paragraph was found to be insufficient and an
appendix (129a) was created. In the same years, using a lot of new
laws and rules, opinions and actions against the state and especially
organised actions were viewed as a crime.In this period the state put
political prisoners in isolation cells and held them under conditions
of "white torture". Also, it became legal to prevent relatives and
lawyers of the political prisoners from visiting them. Laws
particularly used against the Red Army Fraction and the 2 June
Movement were later used against the liberation movements of the
neo-colonialist countries. In the time of the Intifada it was used
against the Palestine liberation movement, in the period of the
Nicaraguan revolution against the Sandinistas. After the occupation of
the Turkish consulate in Cologne to protest against the new Turkish
constitution, it was used particularly against the Party-Front.  What
is the Paragraph 129a about? According to that law, it is a
"terrorist" crime to support the views of a "terror" organisation, to
make propaganda for such an organisation. It is a serious crime to be
a member of such an organisation.  And a member of a "terror"
organisation can be sentenced for the crimes of another member in the
same cruel way.
The practice of the anti-terror law in Germany has shown an important
and for a bourgeois state quite natural tradition: The anti-terror
law, which on paper was neutral, was in practice only used against
left-wing and revolutionary people and organisations. Up to now not a
single fascist has been sentenced under this law.
In the tradition of that state another thing is quite interesting: The
state tries to eliminate the possibility of foreigners being
politically active.  
Refugees who came to Germany for political reasons are not allowed to
act on behalf of the situation in their mother country or to support
groups that do so. But those rules were always a little vague and
"soft". They weren't so useful for the state. But if it is necessary
to use them against views that are a threat for the state, there is no
hindrance to using them anyway.  The most concrete example of the
recent past is the attempt to silence the Peruvian MRTA [Tupac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement] representative in Europe. Isaac Velasco was
forbidden by a court to organise meetings, speak to the public or act
politically in any way.  On the other hand the work of the police and
the state security forces (secret services) was largely organised in a
united manner. Together with the Maastricht Treaty and the open
borders, the contract of Schengen legitimised the collaboration of
police and state security forces, especially against foreigners,
revolutionary organisations and liberation movements. But there was
one problem to be solved: not all the countries that signed the
Maastricht Treaty also signed the contract of Schengen.  But after
they signed the Amsterdam Treaty last summer it is no longer necessary
to sign the contract of Schengen. For example, Greece, which resisted
signing the contract of Schengen, agrees to all the points of the
contract of Schengen by signing the Amsterdam Treaty.
Belgium, which signed the contract of Maastricht as well as Schengen,
is about to prepare an anti-terror law similar to the common ones. In
reality there is no important left-revolutionary power against the
state in Belgium. In other words, Belgium, which gave bourgeois
democracy a model to follow, sees the liberation movements and the
revolutionary organisations of the world as its real enemy.
In short, the developments in Europe show how reactionary and
aggressive the imperialists have become.


-- 
Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Cephesi (Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Front)
DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam
http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc                          
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