Environmentalists today sprayed a black liquid on a monument inscribed with articles of the German constitution, near the Bundestag (lower house) in Berlin, an act that outraged the political class.
“A monument with our constitution has been compromised, I don’t understand it and this makes me angry,” Bundestag president, Social Democrat Bärbel Bas, said in a statement.
The Os Verdes party, government allies of the social democrats and liberals, also condemned the action, as did the opposition conservatives.
“The Constitution embodies freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It should never be compromised,” Liberal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said on the social network Twitter.
The group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), at the root of several radical actions to raise awareness of global warming, published a video on social networks in which people in orange vests sprayed a black liquid on some of the three-meter-high glass panels sprayed with included the articles of the Constitution.
++ Berlin: Monument der Grundrechte in „Erdöl” getränkt ++
Das Kunstwerk nahe des Bundestagsgebäudes says die Artikel des Grundgesetzen. We have learned a lot about who is in charge of that environment.
Erdöl Verfeuern or Grundrechte Schützen? 2023 geht nur eines von both. pic.twitter.com/Ss3wnNvI8S
– Letzte Generation (@AufstandLastGen) March 4, 2023
Then they put up posters asking “Oil or constitutional rights?”. The nature of the liquid has not yet been identified, police said, who told AFP news agency that six activists had been identified and reported.
The activists wanted to protest Germany’s continued use of fossil fuels and remind the government of its constitutional duty to act as the country only aims for carbon neutrality by 2045.
The vandalized monument is a work by Israeli artist Dani Karavan and is titled “Grungesetz 49” (Basic Law 49), in reference to the constitution enacted in West Germany in 1949.
The Letzte Generation group has been involved in several acts of civil disobedience, such as blocking roads and vandalizing paintings on display in museums.
The initiatives could have legal consequences after the opening, at the end of 2022, by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of an investigation against activists “suspected of forming or supporting a criminal organization”.
Source: DN
