[pp.int.general] Germany Arrests Paul Watson

[Justus Römeth]

Gareth,

PPDE only got able to really become succesful because we developed a party
programme, and elections programmes, that go beyond the typical core issues
(freedom of information, limitations to copyright and patents), but we
tried to analyze how such bad legislature concerning those topics was made
to begin with and tried to develop something akin to an ideology from
there. In that sense we in PPDE also have strong opinions on the
legislative process in general, education, the environment; and are working
on things concerning agriculture (admittedly coming from the patent
controversy) or a different financial model for public transport.

That is not to say that other PPs have to follow our lead on this (or copy
our positions: hell no!). But it is what made us successful and become less
fringe.

This topic is clearly more related with civil liberties than anything else.
I think that the German judicial process is actually not so bad (apart from
bad legislature concerning patents and copyrights, but the politicians are
to blame here, not the lawyers and judges), and I do not know enough about
the circumstance surrounding this. It seem quite fishy though, so for
Pirates (in their function as pirates) to put their index finger up for
everyone to see and to make sure that Mr. Watson's civil rights are not
violated should actually be a no-brainer. That is not supporting his cause,
but just claiming his civil rights. Just as we should fo everyone who's
civil rights are (potentially) being abused.

Kind regards

-J

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Jan Lettow <janlettow at gmail.com> wrote:

> Shouldn't the circumstances of the arrest figure prominently in the
> discussion?
>
>
> The Costa-Rican warrant is a decade old, and Interpol decided against
> enforcing it to the result that Mr. Watson could travely freely in
> Europe and elsewhere for the past years.
>
> Why exactly the authorities ignored Intepol in this case is a bit of a
> mystery. Over-zealous 'on the ground' personnel could be a factor in
> my opinion, then we should see a release soon.
>
> But if not we must take a close look, I think: Arbitrary detention of
> politcal activists, nutjob or not, is not something to be taken
> lightly.
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