The authority has initiated proceedings on suspicion of defamation in opposition to three activists within the group after a corresponding assault report was obtained at the start of April, spokeswoman Nina Bussek confirmed to the APA. The ladies had complained about their remedy in police custody.
The brand new line of investigation is prone to be a response from the State Police Directorate (LPD) to the three ladies’s corresponding authorized motion in opposition to the incidents within the Vienna Police Detention Middle (PAZ) on November 22, 2023. The police are mentioned to have denied the now accused activists contact with their lawyer after a protest and never given them meals for over ten hours. In January, the three ladies then turned to the State Administrative Court docket with a grievance concerning the measures, which the APA additionally has.
After being examined by the Investigation and Complaints Workplace for Allegations of Mistreatment (EBM) within the Federal Workplace for the Prevention and Battle in opposition to Corruption (BAK), that grievance additionally triggered legal investigations in opposition to the officers concerned on suspicion of abuse of workplace. Nevertheless, the general public prosecutor’s workplace discontinued the proceedings. The LPD then submitted a report back to the prosecution on suspicion of defamation.
The proceedings are solely a facet strand of the continuing investigation into suspected legal affiliation, property harm and critical property harm in opposition to 38 suspects (as of March 2024). The grievance concerning the incidents within the police detention heart might be heard on the Vienna Administrative Court docket on June twenty fifth.
Lawyer Clemens Lahner confirmed that the information of the grievance are actually the topic of the defamation proceedings in opposition to the three activists on the subject of his inspection of the file. The lawyer criticized the police on this context. It’s “everybody’s proper” to complain a couple of police act. “Simply due to the procedural prices, you’ll suppose twice beforehand about whether or not you’ll be able to show the allegations,” mentioned Lahner, who represents the activists. “The truth that the LPD Vienna is now shouting ‘defamation’ in response to our grievance concerning the size of detention and circumstances as an alternative of correctly investigating the matter says rather a lot concerning the underdeveloped error tradition throughout the police.”
The “Final Technology” additionally took the occasions as a chance for criticism. It was mentioned that the authorities would attempt to “silence” the activists with legal prices. “And all of it’s because we’re dedicated to the precise to survival,” defined press spokeswoman Marina Hagen-Canaval, herself a defendant within the defamation case, to the APA. “As a substitute of shedding themselves in hopeless, authorized threats in opposition to us, the police ought to rise up with us for efficient local weather safety,” mentioned Hagen-Canaval.
