GERMAN solidarity activists staged New Year’s Eve rallies outside prisons on Sunday in what has become an annual tradition.

The rallies were smaller than in recent years, with organisers saying a concerted police propaganda operation warning of special deployments to prevent disruption would have discouraged protesters.

But the Community Resistance group, which opposes the existence of prisons, said it went ahead in front of two Berlin jails, as well as in Bruchsal, Dresden, Freiburg, Glueckstadt, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich.

Its call to activists to attend despite police intimidation ran: “Poor people in particular end up in jail. We are fighting for a society without prisons, against the prison industry, privatisation and exploitation behind bars and for the countless rights that are not granted to prisoners.”

Calls for the abolition of prison are controversial, particularly for violent offenders. But prisoner support network Rote Hilfe said the rallies were boosts to prisoner morale and were particularly important given the growing number of political prisoners, especially from Kurdish solidarity and climate movements.