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Germany's minister of defence proposes to shoot down hijacked planes

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Franz-Josef Jung.
Image: de.w:98102..

Germany's minister of defence, Franz-Josef Jung (CDU), has proposed to shoot down planes hijacked by terrorists.

Although the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany decided in February 2006 that shooting down a hijacked plane would only be lawful if there were no innocent passengers on the plane, Jung announced in public that he would give the order to attack if the basic principles of the constitution were in danger or if the plane posed a tremendous threat to the people. Representatives of the grand coalition differed in their views regarding this question. A member of the Social Democrat Party disagreed with Jung and advised him against contradicting the court's judgment. The opposition in parliament even called Jung an "enemy of the constitution" and called for him to resign.

Jung was supported by members of his own party which underlined the necessity of shooting down a hijacked plane in order to save thousands of lives. The dispute between the two coalition partners concerning new laws to ensure the security of Germany remains unresolved.

The pilots of the German airforce have made it clear that they won't bring down a hijacked plane due to fundamental legal and moral doubts.

In the United States and other European countries such as France, Great Britain or the Czech Republic laws were passed which give the government permission to shoot down a passenger plane under the control of terrorists.


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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

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Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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