BERLIN

Nationwide raids were carried out this week in Germany against Last Generation, a climate protest group accused of committing “criminal acts.”

Scores of armed officers swooped down on more than a dozen properties linked to its members this week in states including Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Berlin.

Since the raids, Last Generation’s website has been taken down, two of its bank accounts frozen, and other possessions seized.

Denying all the charges, the group has been vehement in its condemnation, saying the government’s actions bring into question Germany’s credentials as a democracy.

“We’re obviously shocked that the government would go to such lengths to criminalize our peaceful protest,” Raphael Thelen, a 37-year-old Last Generation member, told Anadolu.

“We do everything with our faces, with our names. There’s nothing that’s not transparent about this movement. Even our whole plan is online on our website … that has been taken down by the government.”

German authorities have said they are investigating seven suspects on charges of “forming or supporting a criminal organization.”

A police statement said the suspects are “accused of organizing a fundraising campaign to finance the criminal acts committed by Last Generation, propagating these acts on their website, and collecting a sum of at least €1.4 million ($1.5 billion) in donations.”

Thelen pointed out that Last Generation is being targeted under legal provisions normally applied to terrorist groups.

“They accuse us of being a criminal organization using a law that’s been written to face groups like the Al-Nusra Front or the Islamic State (Daesh/ISIS),” he said.

“Suddenly it’s (used against) us, citizens of this country, who protest … peacefully for something that’s written into our constitution: climate protection.”

‘Woke up with a gun in her face’

Last Generation first rose to prominence before Germany’s 2021 federal elections, when its members staged a hunger strike and camped outside the parliament building, demanding an audience with lawmakers.

The group aims to draw attention to what it says is the government’s lack of action over the climate crisis.

In recent months, Last Generation activists have staged protests where they glued their hands to famous paintings in museums and blocked highways and even airport runways.

Two of its activists are also suspected of trying to sabotage an oil pipeline running across the Alps from the Italian coast at Trieste to Ingolstadt in Germany last year.

One of the Last Generation properties raided on Wednesday was the apartment of its spokesperson Carla Hinrichs.

According to Thelen, more than two dozen masked and heavily armed officers broke into her house.

“It’s obviously shocking … Carla woke up with masked policemen storming her apartment and putting a gun in her face,” he said.

“I don’t know if that’s how a democracy should treat its citizens.”

Thelen said the group has received widespread support, both moral and financial, since the raids.

“We’ve experienced a huge wave of solidarity and support. Yesterday at our protest, four times more people showed up than usual, and donations have been pouring in,” he added.