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It gets complicated at the Rosentalanlage. Protesters pack building materials on the street. Some build barricades, others throw stones. Those scenes are known from the Nazi free demonstration in Basel on November 24, 2018. At that time there was an unauthorized counter demonstration during a deployment by the right-wing extremist PNOS.
So far well known. The audio track, on the other hand, is spicy, a conversation between two strangers, probably police officers. They comment on what is happening from the exhibition tower. “The stones would not have flown if you had not given rubber,” says one of them, looking at the disturbances. The other asks why. “As a distraction so the PNOS can leave.” This makes the other man frown. “You can not do that. That’s complicated “.
Rubber bullets as a fun maneuver?
Unknown people from the demo environment circulated the video. However, it is not new. Daniel Wagner, defender of an accused protester, knows this very well. As he himself says, it is a sequence of six hours of footage that the prosecutor collected during the investigation of the trials against the protesters. The dialogue now sheds a different light on the use of rubber bullets.
“I used this video at the trial to show that these stones and what happened afterwards were a reaction and not an action,” says Daniel Wagner. “The prosecution has always said that people were willing to use violence,” said the lawyer. “With the video, I wanted to show that from the moment the police were deployed, everything exploded, like throwing stones.” Neither the police nor the Public Ministry commented on this video at Telebasel’s request, since the process is ongoing.
Doubts about “family responsibility”
The sequence now raises the question of whether the use of rubber bullets was proportionate. If the rubber really flew in front of the stones as a diversionary maneuver, it would also raise questions about criminal offenses, says Daniel Wagner. In such a situation, not all participants in the demonstration could be held responsible for the breakdown of peace and violence against the authorities.
To do this, you need a mob that uses targeted violence. In Daniel Wagner’s eyes, this was not the case at the time with the Rosentalanlage. “This is a purely arbitrary reaction due to a police operation, where each one has to be responsible for his own and one cannot be held responsible for his relatives.”
Investigations after the second Nazi-free demonstration in 2020
The events of November 2018 don’t just speak for themselves. A follow-up demo on July 4, 2020 has consequences, too. There may be a second series of processes. That summer day, about 100 people demonstrated in front of the Waaghof prosecutor’s office. The police broke up the demonstration in the nightingale forest. There may be a second edition of the “Nazi Free Trials”. Several participants have received a written request from the prosecutor or the children’s lawyer. Due to the corona pandemic, no oral questioning is required.
Two young participants from Bern are accused, among other things, of violating public order. Sebastian (16) and Reto (23) think badly – Name changed by publisher. The two admit they participated in the rally. This is in solidarity with the defendants of the 2018 demonstration, as they say. As Sebastián emphasizes, he wanted to withdraw when the police made the first requests. “I told the police I wanted to get out, they just said I was unlucky,” said the young man. In the end, there was no escape from the boiler. They also find a suspicion in the letter from the juvenile lawyer strange. The protesters are accused of illegally hanging a banner on the Birsig Viaduct. Sebastian wonders how it can be possible when he was surrounded at the same time.
Touched and gruffly insulted like “Zeck”
Reto also raises serious charges. “I tried everything to behave well and that was not taken into account at all.” He reported at the first opportunity and allowed himself to be pulled from the kettle with his arms raised. But there was a harsh response to her giving in. “They twisted my arm, a policeman pushed me and cursed me like a left-wing tick.”
As the letter says, the two were “part of a public rally”, “who jointly committed violent activities against police officers.” For example, bottles were thrown at the uniformed. At least one female police officer was seriously injured. The two protesters deny it, it is difficult to judge this point. Police did not mention injuries in their press release about the operation. However, as police spokesman Toprak Yerguz explains at the request of Telebasel, the injured police officers do not rule out, as messages are always written shortly after operations. The police could not say more about this, as the process is ongoing. Nor can the Public Ministry provide information on the pending process. The court will probably have to decide whether or not there is something to the pronounced accusations of the two participants.
The Telebasel News article from November 23, 2020.
