Joint press statement by the German chapters of Bandidos MC, the German divisions of Gremium MC, and the German charter of Hells Angels MC
On Thursday, January 19, 2017, the Bundestag passed a stricter association law with the votes of the CDU and SPD. We, the German chapters of Bandidos MC, the German divisions of Gremium MC, and the German charters of Hells Angels MC, hereby declare: The stricter association law is incompatible with the fundamental values and rights of our constitution. There is no place for general suspicion, special rights, and collective punishment in our free and democratic constitutional order. We will promptly take all necessary legal steps to overturn this law.
Why? The new Association Act has massively expanded the ban on symbols. If two associations have "essentially" the same symbol and one of the associations is banned, the other association is also no longer allowed to use its symbol—the restriction in the original version of the law that the non-banned association must pursue the same goals as the banned one has been removed by the governing parties. This crosses the line drawn by the Federal Court of Justice to guarantee freedom of association and freedom of expression.
Although the law applies to all clubs in Germany, it is aimed exclusively at large motorcycle clubs. A glance at the coalition agreement between the governing parties proves this: even here, "rocker clubs" were mentioned as the sole purpose of the planned tightening of the law. But even during the debates, members of parliament spoke almost exclusively about motorcycle clubs – around 9,000 bikers are to be classified as organized crime under the law.
With the law coming into force, we are no longer allowed to use our insignia in public in Germany, even though the vast majority of our local groups are not banned. This means that the law violates, in particular, the freedom of association guaranteed in Article 9 of the Basic Law. These constitutional concerns have also been pointed out by legal experts who were invited by members of parliament to a public hearing of the Interior Committee—the same members of parliament who have now passed the law. Against this background, we consider the actions of the CDU and SPD to be a populist maneuver to distract attention from the real problems of internal security and crime fighting in an election year.
