Switzerland: political policing (1)
01 January 1991
Switzerland: political policing
artdoc August=1992
Professor Krauss, University of Basel and Berlin, told a
conference on political policing in Bern, Switzerland that the
internal security agencies were looking for `threats' to the
security of the state. `The threat to the internal security
agencies in these times when there are no threats at all, is that
without `threats' they could be closed down', he said. These
`threats' mirrored the common theme of issues raised in the Trevi
and Schengen groups - organised crime, drugs, illegal immigration
and public order. (Switzerland is not in the EC but attends the
Trevi Group meetings as one of the `friends' of Trevi). The
conference was organised by the Kommittee Schluss mit dem
Schnuffelstaat (Committee to End the Prying State) and attended
by groups from Belgium, Germany, Holland and the UK.
The Committee was formed following a scandal in 1988 when the
then Minister of Justice and Police gave information in a case
involving money-laundering to her husband a criminal lawyer.
Although criminal charges against the Minister and others were
dismissed the Swiss parliament set up an inquiry (PUK 1) which
revealed in 1990 that the Political Police had collected files
on 900,000 people, two-thirds foreigners, out of a total
population of 6.5 million. There were also files on 30,000
organisations. 350,000 people made applications to see their
personal files, 39,000 of whom had index cards and files held on
them. The 39,000 people and several hundred organisations were
given copies of the file index cards on their `political'
activity which only contained basic information. At the end of
June the Swiss parliament decided they would not be allowed to
see their files. Only in the city of Zurich were files given to
some 3,000 people because these files had never been sent to the
Federal Police Department. Records on most people were held at
canton (regional) level as well as the federal (state) level.
The Military Secret Service also gathered information on more
than 7,000 people who were shown their files. The files contained
information gathered by the Secret Service and that passed on by
the Federal Police.
One of the projects undertaken by the political police was to
try to find common factors using 25 plus variables - single
parent, broken home, students, signing petitions and attending
demonstrations - of `members' of anarchist groups, and concluded
there were none.
At the federal level there are three organisations with police
powers operating under the Ministry of Justice and Police. The
Federal Police, the Aliens Police and the Federal Division of the
Public Prosecutor (this is comprised of five sections with police
powers including the Political Police who deal with internal
security and the detection of undesirable aliens).
State protection law
The government responded to criticism by putting a Bill on state
protection before the Swiss parliament in September 1991. The
Bill covers organised crime, threats endangering Switzerland's
foreign relations and thus its security, terrorism, `violent
extremism' and the threat or use of force to overthrow the state.
A `terrorist' threat is defined as an `attack against the
physical or psychological integrity of a person, aimed at
achieving a political or illegal goal by creating fear and
fright'. It allows the use of undercover agents and optical and
acoustic surveillance with authorisation of the Federal Court in
homes and offices, but no authorisation for surveillance in
public places is required. The Federal Police will have automatic
access to all personal records held by the Confederation and the
cantons; information can be passed to the security agencies of
other countries to safeguard the security interests of
Switzerland or those of the receiving state; an obligation is
placed on post and telecommunications services to pass on
information which is a `threat to