Two German social scientists were arrested July 31 and their flats and offices searched. The charge: suspicion of “membership in a terrorist association." The authorities allege that the two men, a sociologist, Dr. Andrej Holm and a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin identified as Dr. Matthias B. (he wishes to protect his name, for fear that his career will be ruined), are members of a "militant group." Their defenders maintain that the scholars were merely studying the militant group.  But maybe studying is not so mere anymore.

After a stretch in solitary confinement, Dr. Holm was released last week. But the charges are still pending.  A German site describing the case is here, and a summary by the sociologists Saska Sassen and Richard Sennett is here.

What was the crime? Their defenders stoutly maintain that the men were doing research on the militants, three of whom were simultaneously accused of attempted arson on four venicles of the German Federal Army. The police may have more evidence than they have made public, but what they have gone public with is laughable. Dr. Holm is alleged to have met one of the three militants twice this year, in “conspiratorial circumstances."

Paranoia, evidently, is not an American monopoly. Matthias B. is alleged to have used, in academic publications, “phrases and key words” which were also used by the militant group in question. As a political scientist holding a doctorate he is held to be intellectually capable of “authoring the sophisticated texts of the militant group.” Moreover, “as an employee in a research institute he has access to libraries which he can use inconspicuously in order to do the research necessary to the drafting of texts of the militant group."

Meanwhile, a third social scientist, Dr. Andrej H., an urban sociologist, is alleged to have been active in the “resistance mounted by the extreme left-wing scene against the World Economic Summit of 2007 in Heiligendamm.” The fact that he did not take his mobile phone with him to a meeting is considered evidence of “conspiratorial behavior." He has been held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day since August 1.

The social scientists are said to be the brains of the alleged “terrorist organization.” One piece of evidence cited by the Federal prosecutor is that they use the concept of gentrification. (I'm not making this up.)

Arson is, of course, a punishable crime, and is not to be condoned. At the same time, the casting of the net to take in researchers who study militant groups seems a case of prosecutorial zeal run amok.

There is a campaign to demand that the Federal Prosecutor (Bundesanwaltschaft) immediately suspend the proceedings. The American Sociological Association supports the social scientists. Anyone else who wishes to lend them support and protest the charges can write to this address: eickv@zedat.fu-berlin.de.