Police attacked for using 'Stasi' tactics to guard June G8 summit

Published on 23/05/2007 00:29

GERMAN authorities are using scent tracking to keep tabs on possibly violent protesters against next month's G8 summit - a tactic that is drawing comparisons with the methods of former East Germany's secret police.

Scent samples have been taken from an undisclosed number of people believed to be a possible danger to the forthcoming summit so that police dogs can pick out the perpetrators if there is violence, the Hamburger Morgenpost has reported.

Andreas Christeleit, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, confirmed the report but would give no further details.

"This has happened to several suspects," he said.

The use of scent samples was widely known to be practised in Germany by the East German secret police, the Stasi, who used the technique to track dissidents.

Petra Pau, a senior parliamentarian with the opposition Left Party, a group that includes former communists, criticised the practice as "another step away from a democratic state of law toward a preventive security state.

"A state that adopts the methods of the East German Stasi, robs itself of every ... legitimacy," she said.

Violence has marred past summits, particularly in 2001 in Genoa, Italy, when police and protesters clashed in the streets for days. German authorities are increasing security before the 6-8 June summit in the northern resort town of Heiligendamm.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is hosting the event, and the leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan are to attend.

Earlier this month, police raided 40 offices and apartments used by left-wing protesters in Berlin, Hamburg and elsewhere, which provoked protests.

Andreas Blechschmidt, whose Rote Flora protest organisation's building in Hamburg was among those raided, vowed on Tuesday not to be deterred.

"The countrywide raids from early May served only to intimidate," he said.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, the interior minister, has also said that anti-globalisation activists deemed to be "potentially violent" may be held for up to two weeks during the summit in so-called "preventative detention".

A 12.5 million (8.5 million) fence has been built around Heiligendamm in an attempt to keep protesters away.