Informing oneself in time and raising objections has an effect!
(Graz, 1st August 2017) Hardly a day passes by on which conservationists and city protectors, which are sweepingly stamped as “the opponents to the power station”, feel exposed to attacks, insults, mockery, threats and even prosecution under civil law or criminal prosecution. Countless statements, mostly supported by inspector “chance”, arrive on our desk in our editorial office. This leads us to become active.
Therefore we have decided that we want to start an appeal via all public channels so that we cannot only bring together those incidents reported by the operators of the power station, but also to give conservationists and city protectors a prompt to make reports to the police and to the public prosecutors.
Bureaucratic harassments violate human rights and the constitution!
It is with administrative penalties that the authorities use penalty amounts which are very often too high and apparently used as a means of intimidation. According to paragraph 19 of the Administrative Penalty Act the authorities are obliged to automatically consider the income as well as particular mitigating circumstandes like the lack of previous convictions and the participation in secondary role (paragraph 34, Criminal Code).
According to several precedents of the European Court for Human Rights unjustified or excessive penalties in connection with demonstrations represent a violation of article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention, which is in the constitutional law in Austria, because these penalties have a deterrent effect which can keep people from exercising the human right of freedom of demonstration. Thus unjustified and excessive penalties violate the Austrian constitution!
Fighting for the human rights collectively!
Our recommendation: Make a complaint against the amount of the penalty in any case, for it cannot get higher contrary to verbal misinformation, even if it is examined by the authority or the state administration court!
From time to time people are reported to the police or the public prosecutors just because they have been caught in situations of potential or even only putative administrative infringements/criminal offences, where there is no evidence whatsoever for the culpability. The exchange of information helps to uncover contradictions and breaches of the law in the conduct of the authorities!
Whoever has received summons or notifications and is not sure how to react to it, can send the scans of it to zentrale@murxredaktion.at with the reference “Rechtshilfe” (“legal assistance”). The same applies to people who want to report to the authorities because they have been cut back in their rights without being asked, and send an e-mail with the exact formulation of the circumstances and with the reference “Anzeige erstatten” (“Reporting to the authorities”) to zentrale@murxkraftwerk.at as well.
‘Murxkraftwerk’ is not only going to collect experience reports, but will also publish further information about the defence of the accusations which are often unjustified as well as legal information and specimen letters on its website.
The repressions against environmentalists and the city protectors in the very town of the “Human Rights” – Graz – point to the fact that there are several things wrong with the controversial Mur power station ‘Graz Puntigam’, for there would be no reason otherwise to keep people from their right of demonstration and freedom of opinion by intimidating them!