Three years after the eviction of activists' tree houses in Hambacher Forst, the Cologne Administrative Court has established what everyone already knew: the alleged fire safety concerns used to justify the storming were only pretextual.

Hambacher Forst in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) was occupied by environmental activists in tree houses to prevent the clearing of the forest for coal mining. During the eviction of the camp in 2018, activists were dragged from several tree houses in brutal maneuvers in order to demolish them afterwards and start clearing work. The completely contradictory legal legitimation for this was "imminent danger to life and limb of the tree house residents for fire safety reasons." Of course, it was always just a matter of enforcing the title of ownership of the energy monopoly RWE to the property. The fact that a court has determined the illegality of the police action for almost three years shows once again how little the highly acclaimed separation of powers is worth. When it comes to enforcing the interests of capital, the rulers always pull a supposed legal basis out of their hat. If need be, three years later they are briefly remorseful and nothing else happens. For the then and now NRW Minister President Laschet, who ordered the use of the cops on this basis, the matter will not even mean a career change.

The same game is going on with regard to the anarchist house project Rigaer 94 in Berlin. Dozens of cops were send through the house against the declared will of the residents as part of a so-called fire safety inspection. The city rulers are not concerned with the well-being of the residents, but with a demonstration of power and harassment of the residents. When Berlin tenants, on the other hand, live for years in damp and moldy apartments and want to have this stopped, nothing at all happens from the official side.