Can’t read the source article, we’re anti terror laws used for these arrests? Or have German police long had these sort of powers?

I guess their activities fall under some weak definition of terrorism, intimidation against civilians in pursuit of political aims.

I don't have the article open anymore, but yes it did say they were being detained under laws originally written to target terrorists.

It's not about feeling sorry for them, it's about not abiding a society where you can be imprisoned for something you haven't done.

Nobody needs the right to say "I like ice cream" protected. Nobody would dare impinge on that in the first place. Protecting objectionable behavior is how rights are enshrined.

insert "there was no one left for me" poem etc.

We do have a crisis with climate change. It doesn’t justify the way of protest they have chosen, but the severity of the cause was confirmed by some German courts IIRC.

Your comment is wrong in at least three distinct ways.

That is not in any way a legal right.

Still not a great way to win friends and influence people, if you piss them off.

> Still not a great way to win friends and influence people They are not trying to do that

You seem to be implying that freedom of movement isn't a right?

No, it isn't. You have freedom from restraint, but you never have the right to a specific route at a specific time (excepting corner cases where there is only one possible route out of a place, and blocking it would be de facto imprisonment).

The blockings of roads by the Last Generation are those „corner cases“, because of how they are executed: without a warning a road in front of you is closed and you are stuck. It would be easier to understand if they had left an emergency lane and gave a notice in advance.

What a bizarre thought. Fortunately nearly everybody and every country disagrees with you.

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

* Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

* Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

...this is in reference to protestors blocking a road. Are you seriously trying to say that temporarily blocking a road infringes others' right of emigration?

The first part is clearly not about emigration.

It's a crisis in the sense that we, the industrialized west, are blowing past all the guard rails and in the name of comfort and profit. The crisis is that somehow we can't really wrap our heads around how bad it can be.

There are quibbles about stuff like precisely what year do we kill the oceans entirely or ho much will melting the artic will really do to raise sea levels. Along the way we appear to be so busy debating the specifics that that we have missed the point That as a planet we need oceans. We are animals who eat and breathe and we can't live if we decimate the biosphere in the name of burning fossil fuels in constantly increasing numbers.

German here. In the article it says the law is there to prevent terrorism. But 9/11 isn't such a big deal here in Germany (except maybe for traveling). The problem is that those people can be detained for "bevorstehenden Begehung oder Fortsetzung einer Ordnungswidrigkeit von erheblicher Bedeutung für die Allgemeinheit" - "imminent commission or continuation of a misdemeanor of substantial public concern." So they are arrested to prevent misdemeanors which only come with a fine or a super short jail time.

IMO the real reason for this is to protect the automotive industry which is a large part of the German economy