A new proposal by the German left-wing government reads like legislation from former communist dictatorships. In future, it is to be made impossible for critics of the government and other inconvenient contemporaries to leave Germany and even to obtain a passport. There are also plans to take away their passports.
Total surveillance state takes further shape
A new passport law is currently being drafted in the committees of the Bundestag. In the recent past, politically unpopular persons were repeatedly not allowed to leave the Federal Republic of Germany in order to participate in political events abroad. Now, the parties of the “traffic light” party are planning the next step: the passport of opponents of the government is to be withdrawn across the board (or not issued at all) if there is a suspicion that they might participate in events abroad that “contradict the principles of the free democratic basic order”.
On the surface, this is argued with the participation in “right-wing extremist and extremist events” abroad, which are increasingly moving abroad due to the consistent action of the German junta. Behind the scenes, however, they want to further restrict basic rights.
In order to prevent German nationals from participating in right-wing extremist events abroad, the competent authorities have often imposed exit bans and passport refusals against possible participants on the grounds of sections 7 and 10 of the Passport Act (PassG). However, since in many cases those affected successfully appealed against this, a general withdrawal of passports is now being considered. The administrative courts and authorities are also to be put under increasing pressure to decide and act accordingly:
“Against this background, the Committee on the Interior and Home Affairs of the German Bundestag calls on the Federal Government:
- to work towards concretising the passport administration regulation to the extent that, in the case of intended participation in extremist events abroad, the content of which contradicts the principles of the free democratic basic order of the Basic Law, a threat to the international reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany and thus to another significant interest of the Federal Republic of Germany within the meaning of section 7 (1) no. 1 var. 3 of the Passport Act is to be assumed
and - to work towards improving the flow of information from the security authorities to the passport authorities, so that when deciding on a passport denial, the passport authorities have a sufficient factual basis to be able to make a passport denial that is legally sound.”