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10-point plan after the CSD attack: The full severity of the penal state
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After the attack on the CSD, the federal government is putting well-known measures on the table. She covers up the failure of the authorities and can't think of anything to protect queer people. Instead, it's about harshness and punishment. A comment.
Data retention, shackles, higher penalties: these are answers that are as familiar as they are unimaginative. The associated problem: interchangeable. This time the measures relate, according to onehttps://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/massnahme-gegen-terror...the federal governmentshould come, to the anti-queer and Islamist attack on Christopher Street Day in Berlin at the end of July. A known perpetrator drove a minibus into a crowd in the Großer Tiergarten and then attacked bystanders with a machete. One person died and many others were injured.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) and Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) have therefore made a plan. But it's not about protection for queer people, but - unsurprisingly - about Islamist terrorism.
Anyone who reads the plan will quickly recognize many of the demands. Of course, as always: data retention. But because the corresponding draft law is for the federal government anywayhttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/dritter-treib-bundesregierung-beschliesst...arrived in Parliamentand what is already in progress does not lend itself to demands, the countries should now be allowed to store IP connection data.
The mantra of data sharing
Together with data retention, which is called traffic data backup in the plan, improved data exchange is also one of the mantra-like demands repeated after every terrible crime. Investigating authorities should receive “intelligence under threat prevention law”, judicial authorities should receive information on risk assessment and pre-trial detention centers should inform courts and public prosecutors about radicalization tendencies.
But if you go back to the reason for the 10-point plan, you will notice that there was by no means a lack of data exchange during the CSD attack. The real question here is not: How could more information have been pushed back and forth between even more parties? But rather: If the existing structures come to the conclusion that something has to be done, then why hasn't anything happened? Neither data nor powers from thick legal books can draw conclusions. Those responsible have to do that themselves.
Because there was a great deal of information about the later perpetrator in Berlin. An exchange of information also took place, after all the police and secret services spoke about the perpetrator in the Joint Terrorism Center. And not just once, buthttps://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/21/079/2107904.pdf">ineight of their meetings. The last time was in May 2026, shortly before his release from prison. It was about measures for the time afterwards.
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The assessment concluded that there was a “high risk”. So, logically, we spoke to other actors. BKA, Federal Prosecutor General, Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, the State Criminal Police Office, the General Prosecutor's Office and the Berlin Youth Correctional Facility - that is, the judiciary and investigators at one table. Already today and without a 10-point plan. The perpetrator also did not need data retention because there had long been targeted surveillance: observations, telephone surveillance, even a video camera that filmed his home. None of this prevented the terrible act.
Alleged “custody justice”
This is certainly also clear to Dobrindt and Hubig. Another point of their plan primarily concerns the courts and prisons. Juvenile criminal law is “not a cozy justice system,” said the Justice Minister. Ergo: In the future, courts will have to “expressly” justify if they want to treat an offender over 18 under juvenile criminal law. This has so far been possible for adolescents, i.e. people between 18 and 21, under two conditions: They commit acts typical of young people, such as vandalism in a group. Or they cannot yet be considered adults due to their personal development.
With her cozy justice framing, the Justice Minister is now meeting what the Union is already doing in itshttps://www.cdu.de/app/uploads/2025/01/km_btw_2025_wahlprogramm_langfass...for the last federal electiondemanded: to trim down the juvenile criminal law. If the Union had its way, general criminal law would probably apply to everyone aged 18 and over. In the end, only a minimal consensus actually made it into the coalition agreement. They wanted to commission a study on increased child and youth violence. This has now become apparenthttps://www.freipresse.de/nachrichten/sachsen/kinder-und-jugendwolke-j...Commissioned in Julyand should serve as a basis for changes in juvenile criminal law. In view of the point plan that has now been presented, it is believed that the opinion of the experts is no longer needed. The verdict is clear: the courts are too merciful.
Juvenile justice is not a gentle program
Even today, juvenile criminal law is not a gentle program, but rather an attempt to offer more for the development of young people and adolescents than a crude punishment through payment of money or prison. It's about rehabilitation and education instead of just punishment.
Because a prison sentence does not necessarily lead to the offender's future life developing in a better direction. Sohttps://www.dvjj.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Positionspapier-Koalition...also the German Association for Youth Courts and Youth Court Assistance, “that formal, especially custodial, reactions would hardly make a contribution to preventing or ending criminal careers, but would make a major contribution to perpetuating them.” That means: If you can't think of anything else to do other than put people in jail early on, that's not the best prognosis for their future.
The plans for electronic ankle bracelets, for example, are less concrete than the restrictions on juvenile criminal law. It says here that it is “expected” that “clearly intensive use” will be made of ordering ankle bracelets. This is also a clear signal to the courts: more severity. Legislatively, they want to advocate for “uniform, effective federal and state standards” for preventive detention. Some of them differ significantly. In Brandenburg, for example, people are allowedhttps://bravors.brandenburg.de/gesetze/bbgpolg#20">maximumfour daysbe detained without a crime having been committed. This works in Bavariahttps://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayPAG-20">untilto two monthslong. Given the direction it is taking, it is not to be expected that the uniform standard will be at the lower end.
Further points in the plan focus on tightening and expanding punishments: for disseminating propaganda material from terrorist organizations, for dangerous bodily harm with “dangerous tools” such as knives and for collecting donations for terrorist organizations.
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Harshness and ignorance
Prevention and deradicalization form the last two points of the package. This should be evaluated, strengthened and supplemented. What exactly does that mean and whether there will be binding financing plans in the budget? So far unknown.
The points plan is one thing above all: a signal that the “full rigor of the rule of law” should now also reach the judiciary. That the constitutional state must also be a punitive state. The plan puts pressure on the courts to punish adolescents more harshly, instead of individually assessing how a positive future development can be supported for them. Pressure to exploit the maximum repressive possibilities offered by criminal and security law. The federal government wants to force the actors to justify themselves if they do not punish them with maximum severity in every case.
Despite all the severity, the plan of points ignores those who are affected by the attack in Berlin: be it the participants in the CSD, those physically and mentally injured, their relatives and the queer community as a whole. Not a word about how they can be better protected - not just from Islamist-motivated violence, but from the daily attacks, from right-wing extremists who continue to mobilize against CSDs.
Instead, threatenhttps://lambda-online.de/2026/07/24/hilf-uns-lambda-zu-retten/">FFunding for advice and contact pointsto fall away and Union politicians keep youhttps://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/antidiskriminierung-ataman-s...gender and sexual diversityin the Basic Law for “overloading”. The Queer Diversity Association LSVD⁺ has long had one of its ownhttps://www.lsvd.de/de/ct/17292-10-Sofortmassnahme-fuer-queere-Sicherhe...for queer safetypresented. With measures for the police and justice system that are more than just performative harshness.
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Become part of this unique community and support our public interest-oriented, advertising- and tracking-free journalismhttps://netzpolitik.org/spenden/?via=rss">nowwith a donation.
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