Bavaria's conservatives are advocating amendments to the federal state's Police Tasks Bill (PAG), a move that prompted some 30,000 protesters take to streets in Munich to protest the initiative on Thursday.
Activists, who call their movement "noPAG," explained that the main goal of their campaign was to prevent what they perceive as a "massive attack" on democracy and human rights.
"We're demonstrating loud but peacefully," Simon Strohmenger of the noPAG movement was quoted by Deutsche Welle as saying.
Participants of one of the largest demonstrations in Munich over the last few years are calling on the Bavarian authorities to abandon their controversial legislative proposal.
Ein paar Impressionen von der heutigen #NoPAG Demonstration in #München — mehr als 40.000 Menschen gingen gegen den #Polizeiaufgabengesetz Entwurf der CSU auf die Straße. pic.twitter.com/MOU2wqXiSI
— Michael Trammer (@mic_tra) 10 мая 2018 г.
Critics believe that the law will grant Bavarian police almost unlimited powers and enable them to detain people without trial and intervene even before a crime has been committed.
Protesters also argued that law-enforcement services will use means such as online surveillance, postal crackdown and genetic testing, turning Bavaria into surveillance state.
München — Demonstration gegen neues Polizeigesetz PAG — 10.5. 201 pic.twitter.com/gBJhFkzeur
— Charles_491 (@Charles_491) 10 мая 2018 г.
Meine 2 Lieblingsschilder der heutigen #noPAG #nopag #noPAGmuc #nopagjugend Demonstration heute in #München. pic.twitter.com/yWQLYR95nO
— Hans Leo Bader (@city2livein) 10 мая 2018 г.
For its part, the Bavarian CSU party has stated that the changes are only designed to implement the EU's new data privacy directive and help police to identify suspected terrorists more efficiently.
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Commenting on the issue, Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, called concerns about mass surveillance in Bavaria "utter nonsense."
The proposed changes to the bill are expected to be passed on May 15.
