ACAB

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Graffito in Turin , Italy
A smeared radio patrol in Montréal .

The acronym A.CAB stands for the English expression All cops are bastards , literally 'All cops are bastards ' or, in the same way, 'All cops are pigs '. This slogan is used by numerous youth subcultures , especially autonomists , skinheads , hooligans , ultras and punks .

history

The exact time of the creation is unclear. ACAB is a common prison tattoo in the UK. In the form of tattoos, patches, buttons , lettering on jackets and T-shirts and graffiti on house walls as well as lyrics, the acronym found its way into the youth subcultures of punk and Oi in the late 1970s and early 1980s ! . The slogan was later adopted by parts of the neo-Nazi scene . The tracks ACAB by the German punk band Slime and the London Oi! Band The 4-Skins also date back to the early 1980s . The slogan is also shown coded as 1312 , corresponding to the position of the letters in the alphabet.

Further and complementary meanings

In addition to the well-known interpretation as All Cops are Bastards , a large number of backronymes and modifications have been formed. In the left scene , some people use "All Cops are Bullshit" as an alternative, as the term "bastard" is also used in a racist manner (e.g. " Rhineland bastards "). In addition, other interpretations of the abbreviation come from the scene on the left, such as All colors are beautiful ('All colors are beautiful') or all communists are beautiful ('All communists are beautiful'). Widely used in punk, skinhead and football culture is the pronunciation of Eight Cola Eight Beer , which goes back to the common preference for alcoholic beverages , and is often changed to 8 Cola beer . In addition, there is the anti-Semitic variant AJAB - All Jews are Bastards among neo-Nazis . In Autonomous the modification is autonomous anarchists argue better disseminated. Other possible interpretations are e.g. B .: Always carry a bible (' Always have a Bible with you'), All chicks are beautiful ('All chickens [= young women] are beautiful'). The word game CopACABana , based on the place name Copacabana , is popular with football fans .

In the British-speaking world, the pronunciation All Coppers are Bastards is sometimes used, for example in the lyrics of the British band The 4-Skins .

ACAB Rights and Lawsuit

In Germany , the textile retailer Troublemaker secured the rights to ACAB between 1998 and 2007 and was immediately confronted with a criminal complaint from a police officer, which, however, was unsuccessful. Despite this court decision, Troublemaker points out on its website that ACAB textiles could easily be confiscated and that no replacement would be provided in such a case.

ACAB in case law

Graffiti on house wall

Germany

The Tiergarten district court ruled in 2000 that the statement implied in wearing a piece of clothing with the abbreviation ACAB that all police officers are bastards could at most be an insult to a collective ; this collective is not sufficiently definable due to the unmanageable number of police officers . The reasoning for the decision states as follows:

"In the present case, given the actual circumstances (wearing a T-shirt with the word 'ACAB' on it), it can only be an insult to a collective, as this is supposed to be the abbreviation for the English phrase 'All Cops Are Bastards'. [...] "

"According to the case law of the BGH and the BVerfG (see BVerfG NJW 1995, 3303, 3306, so-called second ' soldiers are murderers ' decision) it is constitutionally unobjectionable to protect the honor of a collective. However, in order to be capable of being insulted, the collective must be clearly delineated. [...] "

“If the [...] abbreviation 'ACAB' is the English sentence 'All Cops Are Bastards', this means that an unmanageably large group, namely 'all cops' ('All Cops') has been hit. In any case, according to the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court (3306 et seq. On the problem of the formulation “All soldiers”), 'all police officers' is not a sufficiently defined collective. [...] It cannot therefore be ruled out with the certainty necessary for a conviction for insult that the accused wanted to express his disregard in principle to all police officers as the representatives of state power, regardless of their nationality. This is to be seen as a (punishable) insult to an unmanageable large group of people. "

- Berlin-Tiergarten District Court, decision of January 19, 2000

In this judgment, based on the judgment on the relationship between freedom of expression and the protection of honor in collective judgments on soldiers (see soldiers are murderers ) of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1995, it was clear that only a definable and delimitable group could be offended by the ACAB statement.

The first criminal division of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court has confirmed the criminal liability for insulting in the opposite case that ACAB is directed against a clearly defined group of police officers.

“[The suspect] shouted 'ACAB' to a police officer, [...] from a distance, pointing at the police officer with an outstretched arm. In terms of revision law, there is no objection to the fact that the criminal justice judge assigned the meaning of 'all cops are bastards' to the letter combination mentioned. Because the abbreviation 'ACAB' is used in youth subcultures and also in the neo-Nazi scene for this English-language slogan and other interpretations can be ruled out in the present case. The individual designation of a police officer (`` cop '') as `` bastard '' is objectively defamatory in both English and German and, according to the verdict, was also subjectively expressed as defamatory, without there being any reason to do so. The formal insult is therefore neither justified by the exercise of legitimate interests in accordance with Section 193 of the Criminal Code nor by the fundamental right to freedom of expression in accordance with Article 5 (1) of the Basic Law . "

- Stuttgart Higher Regional Court, decision of June 23, 2008

During a second division game between Karlsruher SC and VfL Bochum in October 2010, fans rolled out a banner criticizing the police operation at a demonstration against Stuttgart 21 . A banner reading ACAB was then displayed. A football fan identified in the process was fined 600 euros. The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court confirmed the sentence and justified this by stating that it was a disparaging statement.

The District Court of Regensburg convicted on 25 January 2012, a football fan, the occasion of a football match, a T-shirt that said COPACABANA wore the letters ACAB was be printed in colors for insulting fined. The court argued that there was a collective insult which was directed against the police forces deployed at the soccer game as “delimitable and manageable” group of people.

In a ruling dated December 18, 2013, the Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced a football fan to a fine of 3,000 euros for wearing trousers with the words ACAB on it to a football match .

The Federal Constitutional Court ruled on May 17, 2016 that the slogan, as a general statement, was covered by freedom of expression, since it expresses a "general rejection of the police and a need to distinguish themselves from the state regulatory authority" and this can only be classified as an insult, as long as it relates to a "sufficiently clear and delimited group of people". The chairman of the police union Oliver Malchow described the decision as a slap in the face. The abbreviation is almost always associated with violence against police officers.

Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on "FCK CPS" (FUCK COPS)

A young woman from Lower Saxony was sentenced in 2013 by the Bückeburg District Court for wearing a badge marked FCK CPS to 15 hours of work for insult after a police patrol filed a complaint against her. A few weeks earlier, the police had complained about wearing a T-shirt with the same print. The condemned appealed to the Higher Regional Court, but this was rejected. She then lodged a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court because she saw her right to freedom of expression restricted. In its decision of February 26, 2015, the third chamber of the first senate confirmed its previous jurisprudence and made it clear that the restriction of freedom of expression ( Article 5 of the Basic Law ) when weighed against accusations of insult is an "expression [which is] sufficiently clear and delimited Group of people refers “need. The verdict of the local court in Bückeburg was overturned.

“The challenged decisions of the local court and the higher regional court violate the complainant's fundamental right to freedom of expression under Article 5 (1) sentence 1 of the Basic Law.
The imprint 'FCK CPS' is not obviously meaningless from the outset, but expresses a general rejection of the police and a need to distinguish themselves from the state authority. It is an expression of opinion within the meaning of Article 5, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 of the Basic Law. The criminal conviction of the complainant interferes with this fundamental right. […]
A disparaging statement that neither names specific persons nor is recognizable related to specific persons, but rather covers a collective without individual breakdown, can under certain circumstances be an attack on the personal honor of the members of the collective. The larger the collective, the weaker the personal concern of the individual member can be, because the allegations against large collectives are usually not about the individual misconduct or individual characteristics of the members, but about the collective's unworthiness from the point of view of the speaker goes. However, it is constitutionally not permissible to treat a statement referring to members of a group in general as referring to a sufficiently manageable group of people because such a group forms a sub-group of the group of people designated according to the more general genre. "

- BVerfG, press release No. 23/2015 on the decision of February 26, 2015, Az. 1 BvR 1036/14.

Netherlands

In 2011, three fans of the Ajax Amsterdam football club were fined € 330 each for wearing T-shirts with the digits “1312” (a code for the letters ACAB) at a game in April 2010.

Austria

In Austria , the expression of the slogan ACAB was mostly assessed as a violation of decency , which could be punished under administrative law, for example by means of an organ penal order. The penalty could be up to 700 euros (or a week in police custody). There are no known criminal judgments regarding clothing with this slogan in Austria.

On June 18, 2019, however, the Constitutional Court (VfGH) decided, similar to the German Federal Constitutional Court, that punishing the slogan as a violation of decency violated the fundamental right to freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR in certain cases. The case concerned a football fan who waved an ACAB flag in the stadium. According to the VfGH, the banner should "primarily refer to the tense relationship between some football fans and the police and express the negative attitude towards the state of the police as part of the state authority" and is therefore "not a specific 'insulting' certain other people" . Therefore, the criticism expressed is "to be accepted with a view to the special meaning and function of freedom of expression in a democratic society, taking into account all the circumstances of the case." The fine imposed on the fan (and the decision of the Administrative Court of Vienna , which had initially confirmed it) were lifted.

Switzerland

In Switzerland there was a conviction because of the slogan which, in the opinion of the court, could not be “a general statement” in the case of a one-on-one encounter.

Musical implementation

Musically, the abbreviation was already taken up frequently in the 1980s, for example by one of the first Oi! Bands, The 4-Skins from England (who are often seen as the inventors of the slogan), or in 1981 by the German punk band Slime .

The solution found further musical use through:

Use as a license plate

An association founded by Hamburgers in Aachen , which can be assigned to the left-wing scene, bought a water cannon that had been decommissioned by the police in 1992 . In 2010, the Road Traffic Office granted road traffic approval and the desired license plate AC AB 1910 - a combination of the term “All Cops Are Bastards” with the year that FC St. Pauli was founded . When the club wanted to use the water cannon at a demonstration in Aachen after an Alemannia game against St. Pauli in February 2012, this led to administrative and legal proceedings in which the operation of the water cannon was prohibited.

literature

  • Benedikt Klas / Caroline Blatt, “ACAB” - Is it a criminal offense against police officers? , HRRS 8/2012, 388-393
  • Mark A. Zöller, insulting police officers by using the abbreviation "ACAB" - zu OLG Karlsruhe, ruling v. July 19, 2012 - 1 (8) Ss 64/12 - AK 40/12 , Journal for Legal Studies (ZJS) 2013, 102 ( Online PDF, 103 KiB)

Web links

Commons : ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Troublemaker / ACAB In: Belltower.News. Amadeu Antonio Foundation , accessed July 2, 2018 .
  2. ^ "All communists are beautiful" as a T-shirt saying ( Memento from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Kai Von Appen: "ACAB" insults the policewoman: Caution, head protection! In: The daily newspaper . November 4, 2013 ( taz.de [accessed September 6, 2015]).
  4. ↑ Caution: cop-ACAB-ana is a criminal offense in Regensburg. In: regensburg-digital.de. Regensburg Digital, accessed on February 27, 2016 .
  5. ↑ 4 Skins Lyrics - ACAB (All Coppers Are Bastards) | LyricsBox. In: lyricsbox.com. LyricsBox, accessed February 27, 2016 .
  6. ↑ DPMAregister | Trademarks - register information. In: dpma.de. register.dpma.de, accessed on February 27, 2016 .
  7. ^ Berlin-Tiergarten District Court. Decision of January 19, 2000, Az. 238 Cs 877/99, full text ( Memento of October 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ).
  8. ↑ SuperUser: Home. In: olg-stuttgart.de. www.olg-stuttgart.de, December 2, 2004, accessed on February 27, 2016 .
  9. ↑ ra-online GmbH: "COPACABANA" T-shirt can be punishable for insulting if the "ACAB" sequence of letters is highlighted in color. In: gratis-urteile.de. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
  10. ↑ BVerfG, decision of May 17, 2016 - 1 BvR 257/14. Federal Constitutional Court, accessed on May 2, 2019 .
  11. ↑ BVerfG, decision of May 17, 2016 - 1 BvR 2150/14. Federal Constitutional Court, accessed on May 2, 2019 .
  12. ^ "ACAB": Insulting police officers falls under freedom of expression. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved October 15, 2016 .
  13. ↑ BVerfG, decision of 02.26.2015 - 1 BvR 1036/14. Federal Constitutional Court, accessed on May 2, 2019 .
  14. ^ Judgment by the Federal Constitutional Court: "Fck Cps" does not have to be a criminal offense . In: Spiegel Online . ( April 28, 2015 [accessed September 6, 2015]).
  15. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court - Press - "collective insult" only when referring to a sufficiently manageable and delimited group of people. In: bundesverfassungsgericht.de. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Football fans fined for anti police t-shirt - DutchNews.nl . In: DutchNews.nl . January 7, 2011 ( dutchnews.nl [accessed October 15, 2016]).
  17. ↑ ³ 1 para. 1 line 1 WLSG.
  18. ↑ Constitutional Court, E 5004 / 2018-11 , June 18, 2019, margin no.22 ff.
  19. ^ "All Cops Are Bastards": Insulting police officers will be expensive for FCZ fans , Aargauer Zeitung, December 17, 2015
  20. ↑ ACAB on YouTube
  21. ↑ On the EP "Fratelli d'Italia"
  22. ↑ ACAB lyrics . Archived from the original on March 28, 2013. Retrieved on February 4, 2019.
  23. ↑ Paul Elstak Featuring Leo Sex / Paul Elstak & Firestone - ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) / Retaliate. In: discogs.com. Discogs, accessed February 27, 2016 .
  24. ↑ Estevão Ribeiro do Espinho: 101.3 Megahertz: Lyrics and Letters of the Spectators Of Suicide . BoD - Books on Demand, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-5496-7 ( books.google.com ).
  25. ↑ Adolf Rebler: Special approval for Ex-police vehicle: water cannons and tanks as a second car. Legal Tribune Online, November 26, 2012, accessed September 6, 2015 .
  26. ↑ St. Pauli fans are not allowed on the street with water cannons . In: Welt Online . December 20, 2012 ( online [accessed September 6, 2015]).
  27. ↑ HRRS Aug./Sept. 2012: Klas / Blatt - "ACAB" - Criminal offense against police officers? · Hrr-strafrecht.de. In: hrr-strafrecht.de. www.hrr-strafrecht.de, accessed on February 27, 2016 .