An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
This 50th issue of CILIP is, as would be expected, a special anniversary is-sue. While the information service which began in 1978 has traditionally fo-cused on documenting developments in the field of domestic security and their effects on civil rights, we shall attempt to reverse the order in this spe-cial issue. In this issue, human and civil rights organizations and their effects on official policy makers and their decisions is one of the key points of focus in this issue. In keeping with past tradition, CILIP focuses in on those organizations predominantly occupied with defending human and civil rights in their daily activities today or in the past.

Notes on the History of Concerned Citizens Groups in Post-War Germany
by Wolf-Dieter Narr
Civil Liberties Groups such as the first one formed and active in the years from 1950-1953 ‚Federation for Civil Rights‘ existed in the Federal Republic of Germany from the very beginning. The same held true for the former GDR. The author, professor of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, presents an analysis of the conditions under which these groups were formed and carried out their activities, their successes and failures and their significance for the political culture and climate of the Federal Republic.

The four (oldest) human and civil rights organizations in the FRG
by Wolf-Dieter Narr
Despite the lack of any attempt to summarize and/or analyze their individual activities, the author presents an introduction to the four major organizations in the field of civil and human rights in Germany today. These are the League for Human Rights (founded in the late 50’s), the Humanist Union (founded in 1961), the Gustav-Heinemann-initiative (founded in 1978) and finally the Committee for Basic Rights and Democracy (founded in 1980). Common to all four organizations is the fact that they do not restrict them-selves to single and/or individual issues. In principle they deal with all of the issues arising out of the protection and promotion of human and civil rights in general. Yet, each of these organizations has developed its own field of specialization during the past years and decades. These differing fields of interest and specialization tend more to supplement one another than to compete with one another. The article provides a survey of the „Big Four“.

Civil Liberties and Police /CILIP – Looking Back
by Falco Werkentin
When the initial test issue of CILIP was prepared in March of 1978 using a photocopy device, it was published in both German and English, domestic politics in Germany had nearly reached the boiling point. Far from ever being conceived as a means of promoting academia careers, CILIP as an information service attempted from the onset to become actively involved in the day-to-day disputes on domestic security policies and practices. The author, one of the founding members of CILIP, reviews the past years against the backdrop of a changing political climate in the FRG.

Civil Liberties and the Police/CILIP under Surveillance
by Udo Kauß
In 1988, ten years after it began publishing it became known that the infor-mation service CILIP as well as its staff had been targeted for surveillance by the Berlin State Constitutional Guard as well as by its federal component at the national level in Cologne. The author, an attorney and himself a member of the CILIP editorial staff, filed suit on behalf of the editorial staff of the journal in an effort to force these agencies to divulge the information they had on file. When the proceeding finally began to shift in favor of the plaintiffs in 1993 with many indication that the CILIP staff would win the agencies suddenly filed an affidavit stating that all of the data had been destroyed in the meantime so as to pre-empt divulgence of its information. The article provides a summary of the proceedings.

The Initiative Against the Uniformed Police Act
by Clemens Rothkegel and Heinz Weiß
In the mid-70’s the incumbent federal administration went to great efforts to unify the state police acts through the introduction of „Sample Proposal for a Unified Police Act“. At the end of 1976 an „Initiative Against the Uniformed Police Act“ arose out of the opposition to these efforts comprised both of members of the then still-extant Communist splinter groups as well as of representatives from the bourgeois liberal political spectrum. After two years of active political pressure-groups the group was ultimately disbanded. Several of its members were subsequently active in forming the groups „Citizens Observing the Police“ (in Berlin) and/or became active in the various police working groups in the various parties of the Greens forming throughout the country.

The Organization Citizens Observe the Police
by Heiner Busch
In retrospect the Berlin working group Citizens Observe the Police might ap-pear to be nothing more than one of the many brushfires set ablaze in left-wing attempts to come to grips with the violence of the state. On the other hand, few organizations have generated greater exasperation on the part of politicians and police officials than this one. Indeed even prior to the official formation of the group, its potential existence led to official parliamentary inquires. One of the results of all the negative publicity was to raise public awareness of the group’s existence to levels which would otherwise remained unexpected, yet the press’s interest in picking up the group’s documented evidence of police misconduct remained subdued. In the mid-80’s Citizens Observe the Police passed away so silently and slowly that some people (including members of the police force) haven’t even taken note of it up until this very day.

The Investigating Council of Berlin
by Committee Members
On December 12th, 1980 Berlin police forces evicted squatters from several vacated apartment buildings in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg provoking some of the largest demonstrations and riots to have been witnessed by the city in years. One of the consequences of these forceful evictions was that the Investigating Council of Berlin was called to life on the very same day. This was the second investigating council to be created in the Federal Republic since the creation of the first council in Hamburg. The Investigating Council of Hamburg had been created nearly three years earlier in connection with the major demonstrations in Brokdorf. Later investigating councils would also be called to life by the left-wing „scenes“ in several other German cities, most of which came to life in connection with spectacular events , many of which were later dissolved equally as quickly as they had been formed. On-going activities were only maintained in addition to Berlin and Hamburg in the Frankfurt region by the Investigating Council of Frankfurt in conjunction with the extended and aggravated protests against the creation of the Runway East at Frankfurt’s International Airport.

The National Working Group of Critical Policewomen and Policemen (Hamburg Signal)
by Martin Herrnkind
The massive deployment of police forces against anti-nuclear energy demon-strations and the peace movement of the 70’s and 80’s generated a great deal of resignation among the officers compelled by duty to participate. The mas-sive deployment of police forces to the site of the Brokdorf anti-nuclear po-wer demonstrations and the now infamous encirclement of demonstrators participating in a demonstration in Hamburg on the day thereafter simply caused the pot to boil over. Initially, roughly thirty male and female mem-bers of the police force banded together to form what was initially called the Hamburg Signal and to stage a public demonstration against police tactics. Within a year a national working group had been formed which was given the name National Working Group of Critical Policewomen and Policemen (Hamburg Signal). Today it boasts a total of 130 members.

The Police Profession Group in amnesty international
by Otto Diederichs
The human rights organization „amnesty international“ has a total of nearly 1.1 million members and supporters throughout the world. In the Federal Republic a total of 30,000 individuals are organized in more than 600 groups striving to promote the goals of the organization such as the abolishment of torture and the institutionalization of fair trial procedures. Professional groups such as physicians, psychologists, journalists, teachers and attorneys also provide their services to and for the human rights organization. Re-cently, regular members of the police forces in Germany who have long be-longed to the organization as individuals formed their own professional group within the organization. The professional group’s members explain their belated creation of a professional group by pointing to existing reservations to uniformed police officers who generally play a role as perpetrators rather than victims in the organization’s activities.

The Citizens‘ Committee January 15th
by Uwe Boche
The Citizens‘ Committee which has a total of 40 members derives its name from the day when citizens of the former GDR stormed the gates of the Stasi – an abbreviation for the hated former East-German Ministry of State Security – and raced to save its files from being destroyed. It was formed in early 1991 by members of the Citizens‘ Committee Normannen Street (the location of the administration’s offices), the Working Group on Security of the Central Roundtable of the GDR and its Operative Group as well as by other civil rights activists and sympathizers. The organization was created to pursue the goal of uncovering the misuses of power by the former ruling party in the GDR the SED – Socialist Unity Party – and the other mass organizations and organizations which lent their support thus contributing to dealing with the history of the GDR.

The Offices of Jansen & Janssen
by Wil van der Schans
The offices of Jansen and Janssen located in Amsterdam arose out of the „social movements“ of the 80’s. Since then Jansen & Janssen maintain an extensive documentation archive and a library specialized in the fields of police, the legal system and intelligence services. An in-house investigation office has already performed numerous studies in the above mentioned fields. Staff members of the offices finance their works through the revenue derived from the sale and publication of topical articles for weekly magazines and professional journals. Revenues are also derived from services fees charged for use of the archive documentation files. These sources currently generate sufficient funds to defray two thirds of the costs of the offices, the rest is funded from contributions. The fields dealt with by the members of the staff are numerous and range from general police behavior on duty to alien and refugee policies in the Netherlands as well as government corruption.

Statewatch
by Tony Bunyan
Following a series of preliminary planning sessions Statewatch was founded in London in 1990. The founding group included several members of a previous information service named „State Research“ which discontinued publication in 1982, several attorneys and independent scientists, journalists and local activists. Today, Statewatch maintains an extensive library and publishes a regular newsletter on questions dealing with security policies in Great Britain and the European Community. The newsletter, which began publication in 1991 is now entering into its fifth year of publication. Since May of 1991 Statewatch is also connected to an E-Mail data-bank.

The ‚Archive on the Spook State Switzerland‘
by Catherine Weber and Jürg Frischknecht
In September of 1989 a parliamentary investigating committee presented its official report according to which dossiers on a total of 900.000 Swiss citi-zens were located in the archives of various Swiss secret services and dome-stic intelligence gathering agencies. In the following February of 1990, a citizens‘ committee was formed entitled „Put an End to the Spook State“ which ultimately succeeded in compelling the state to divulge nearly all of the card-files and dossiers on these citizens. A further result of its activities was the creation of a non-governmental foundation called „Archive on the Spook State Switzerland“ providing the service of collecting and archiving those files, materials and dossiers voluntarily provided by Swiss citizens for research purposes by historians, etc.

Fatal Police Shooting in 1994
by Otto Diederichs
Traditionally CILIP publishes the new statistics on fatal police shootings during the previous year at the beginning of each new year of publication. These statistics reflect both the raw data and the circumstances surrounding these incidents. In 1994 a total of 10 persons died as a consequence of police use of firearms. Thus, once again after an interim high of 15 persons in 1993 the national tally fell back to its „regular“ level of 10 persons which has remained a „standard“ since 1983.

The Draft ‚Europol‘ Convention
by Thilo Weichert
According to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 one of the key concepts of „Europol“ is to improve and coordinate police work throughout the ‚European Union‘. In June 1993, the „Trevi ad hoc working group ‚Europol‘ presented its first draft version for a Europol Convention. During Germany’s term as president of the European Union in 1994 there was a concentrated effort to present a proposal ready for signing which ultimately failed due to French resistance. Now, the proposal is to be signed during the first half of 1995 while France presides over the Union.

Wire-tapping
by Norbert Pütter
In mid-January 1995 numerous press reports indicated that the number of wire-taps was on the decrease. Careful perusal of these reports revealed that court or state’s attorney ordered wire-tap cases had indeed declined by 250 in 1994 compared to the previous year. The current figures and the general implication that the police are tapping fewer phones provide sufficient grounds for updating CILIP’s figures from last year (CILIP 3/94) and to add a few cogent comments of our own.