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AI criticises institutional racism and police brutality

01 January 2004

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On 14 January the international human rights organisation Amnesty International published a report on Germany, entitled: Back in the Spotlight. Allegations of police ill-treatment and excessive use of force in Germany (AI Index: EUR 23/001/2004).

The report found a "persistent pattern of alleged ill-treatment and excessive use of force by police officers in Germany" and called for the German government to set up an independent complaint's commission to investigate alleged police misconduct.

Another problem the report found, was a systematic failure by German authorities to investigate and bring to justice officers responsible for violence and ill-treatment, mainly directed against black people, but increasingly also white people. This institutional neglect is summarised as:

unreasonably protracted length of criminal investigations into allegations of police ill-treatment, the reluctance of some prosecuting authorities to forward cases to the courts, the high incidence of counter-charges brought by police against those who complain, and sentences which in some cases do not appear to match the gravity of the crime.

The problem is compounded by the lack of a system to maintain and publish uniform and comprehensive statistics that would enable a systematic analysis and proof of institutional failure. With police statistics currently collated by the individual Länder (regional states) under varying categories, comprehensive analysis is impossible (see Statewatch vol 11 no 2).

The report can found at:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR230012004?open&of=ENG-DEU Also see Statewatch vol 12 no 3.

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