The German public prosecutor’s office admitted on Sunday to having intervened environmental activists belonging to the group Letzte Generation (“The last generation”), information that sparked outrage in the country.
The group’s activists, known for sticking their hands in the asphalt of the roads they block in this way to draw attention to the climate crisis, called the prosecution’s move “absurd.”
“It’s stupid”
The conversations between the members of the group and the journalists who questioned them were part of the monitored calls, the prosecutor’s spokesman acknowledged.
While the journalists themselves were not targeted, “they have been affected by these measures due to the calls made through the monitored phone numbers,” the spokesperson said.
The newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung unveiled the operation on Saturday, saying it began in October 2022 and also included monitoring emails, voicemail accounts and logging cellphone GPS data.
“We protest showing our names and faces, we publish our plans, we accept the legal consequences,” Generación Letzte wrote on Twitter. “However, the Bavarian LKA (police) recorded phone calls, emails (…) This is nonsense.”
Dietmar Bartsch, parliamentary leader of the radical left opposition party Linke, called the surveillance “completely inappropriate”.
Source: BFM TV
