Reports that the German police have taken smell samples of suspected would-be G8 protestors on Wednesday saw politicians accuse the state of resorting to the dubious methods of the Stasi secret police.
"This reminds me of the methods used by the Stasi," Wolfgang Thierse, one of the deputy speakers of the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, told the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper. The feared secret police of the former communist East Germany notoriously tried to capture and store the body odour of political dissidents - including by stealing their dirty clothes - so that sniffer dogs could trace them.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble conceded that police this month took smell samples when they raided sites in northern Germany linked to 18 suspected anti-globalisation activists.
"In some cases it can be a way of identifying suspects," Schaeuble said. The suspects were allegedly plotting to carry out arson attacks to disrupt the June 6-8 summit of the leaders of the Group of Eight most industrialised nations in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm. German authorities are expecting up to 100,000 activists to target the event and have erected a security fence 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) long around the luxury hotel where the G8 leaders will gather.
They have also put up a security net in the sea off Heiligendamm. Thierse, a member of coalition partners the Social Democrats, accused the authorities of going overboard and creating a climate of "hysteria", saying the fence brought to mind the Berlin Wall. Hans-Christian Stroebele, the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Greens, remarked: "It is the 'sniffer' state at its best all over again."
But federal prosecutors on Wednesday denied that police wanted to use the smell samples to weed out G8 protestors, although a spokesman admitted samples were taken from five or six suspects in order to compare these with evidence found at the scene of past arson attacks.
"This is standard practice," Andreas Christeleit said. Human rights group Amnesty also criticised the tactics of the German authorities, saying they were reminiscent of those employed at the G8 summit in the Italian city of Genoa in 2001 when a demonstrator was killed in clashes with riot police.
"It very much reminds us of the policies of (the then Italian prime minister) Silvio Berlusconi," said Barbara Lochbihler of Amnesty's office in Germany. Left-wing groups in Germany have warned that the police raids angered their supporters and would only heighten their resolve to demonstrate at the G8 summit.
A group saying it was opposed to the G8 has claimed responsibility for torching the Mercedes car belonging to the editor of Bild, Germany's biggest-selling newspaper, police said, without giving more details. That was the latest in a series of attacks on cars belonging to businessmen and officials linked to the summit.
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