30,000 Germans Stage Massive Uprising In Protest Of Coming Police State

Thousands of German citizens staged a massive protest against a proposed new law that will give police almost unlimited powers allowing them to intervene before a crime has even been committed.

The new law will give the police special enhanced powers when it comes to surveillance in a country that has almost become a police state.

30,000 protesters took to the streets to oppose the federal state's Police Tasks Bill (PAG) in Munich on Thursday.

Sputnik News reports 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) May 10, 2018

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 a surveillance state.

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.

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.