Rights group balks at ‘riot unit’ proposal

Date: 11/10/01

By Martin Banks

CIVIL liberties organisation Statewatch claims that a German government proposal to create special EU riot units will result in peaceful protestors being treated as terrorists. The group also fears the move could escalate levels of violence in the wake of this week's US military strikes on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

German Interior Minister Otto Schilly says urgent action needs to be taken to combat what he calls "travelling offenders committing violent acts".

But Statewatch editor Tony Bunyan described the proposal as part of a strategy to treat protestors as the same kind of threat as ruthless terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.

Plans for an EU riot unit, which have received the backing of Schilly's Italian counterpart Claudio Scajola, were first mooted on 6 August in response to the violence seen at the EU summit in Göteborg and G8 conference in Genoa.

Under the proposals, each member state would create special units that would work together to combat violence at future showpiece EU events.

One member state would also be able to request the help of the riot units of another. Statewatch, however, says the proposals appear to link the democratic right to demonstrate with emergencies of the kind created in the wake of the terror attacks on the US on 11 September. Bunyan said: "We are living in very dangerous times in many senses. Our fear is that the use of armed and specially-trained paramilitary police units to counter protests in the European Union will tend to escalate violence, not diminish it. More importantly, we believe it is part of a strategy to treat protestors as the same kind of 'threat' as terrorists. This can only lead to a curtailment of the right of free movement and the democratic right to demonstrate."

Civil liberties organisation Statewatch claims that a German government proposal to create special EU riot units will result in peaceful protesters being treated as terrorists. The group also fears the move could escalate levels of violence in the wake of the US military strikes on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.