The Bavarian investigative authorities are accused of listening for months to countless telephone conversations between climate activists and the media. According to a report, the group “Last Generation” has been affected, which is under investigation for suspicion of forming a “criminal organization”.
This is reported by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, which referred to internal documents. The instruction is said to come from the Munich public prosecutor’s office. Among the surveillance were a landline posing as the official press phone and the cell phones of some of the Last Generation leaders. The group’s spokeswoman in Germany, Carla Hinrichs, was mentioned. On November 7, 2022, she would have received several questions from “Spiegel”.
The conversations with journalists have been tapped unnoticed by the Bavarian criminal investigation department since October 2022. “The connection almost exclusively receives questions from media representatives, students and schoolchildren asking for press information or an interview,” the “SZ” quoted from a police note about the first two months. The members of the Last Generation are currently under investigation in Germany on suspicion of forming a criminal organization (see video above).
problem of press freedom
According to the report, the wiretapping measures were based on decisions of the Munich court. While listening to conversations with journalists is not strictly prohibited, there are major legal hurdles to doing so. The authorities should always carefully balance the freedom of the press against the interests of criminal prosecution. Whether that happened here is doubtful. Freedom of the press is not even mentioned in the relevant resolutions.
Source: Krone
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