Police and protesters clash in Berlin neighbourhood

[webfact]

Police and protesters clash in Berlin neighbourhood



BERLIN: -- Around two thousand left wing extremists marched through the Freidrichshain neighbourhood of Berlin on Saturday in a day of tension with a similar number of police that hours later ended in clashes.

Paramedics ended up attending to both injured police officers and demonstrators as the day wore on. Demonstrators began setting off fireworks in the direction of the officers and throwing bottles and stones, while vandalizing police vehicles and breaking store windows.

The anti-authoritarian demonstrators said they were upset at the constant presence of police in their neighbourhood which is famous in Berlin for its far-left community.

Police responded with tear gas and took several demonstrators into custody, declaring the riot over a little after 11 p.m.

The authorities have repeatedly tried to clear people from a squatted house on Rigaer Strasse, resulting in months of vehicles being set on fire, which police have mostly blamed on far-left extremists.

The leftists had made open calls for street violence in recent weeks to show their opposition to the round-the-clock surveillance on the Friedrichshain squat.

Berlin’s Mayor Michael Müller, a centre-left Social Democrat, has called for the residents of the Rigaer Strasse property and neighbours to sit down and talk through their differences.

The centre-right Christian Democrats, however accuses the city’s authorities of being too lenient.

More about: Berlin Clashes and riots Germany


-- Pattaya One 2016-07-11

[lovelomsak]

Seems Germany would rather police 2,000 of the brothers rather than millions of refugees. Better to be a refugee these days.

[shirtless]

Police should not be used to silence their citizens , where were they when all the sexual assaults took place,

[4737 Carlin]

Just what Germany needs - more left wing politics.

[KKr]

this is called prioritising .
Free Ownership of Property is violated by Squatters.
Cannot be compared with refugee problems or sexual harassment .

[humqdpf]

I have no idea why a small riot or disturbance in Berlin has appeared in Thaivisa. But perhaps I can provide a little background for the very few who are interested.

Berlin, even before the Berlin Wall came down, had a highly politicised house squatting and protest scene left over from the 1960s. Small scuffles to larger fights between police and protesters were relatively commonplace with much larger protests and street fighting between citizens and police on special days, such as Mayday (May 1st) every year.

Because the city of then West Berlin was limited in size because it was surrounded by East Germany, some landlords were purposely allowing perfectly good buildings become dilapidated so as to escape rent controls and charge much higher rents Squatters would take over an empty apartment house that was being made dilapidated, replace the part of the roof that had been broken (broken roofs and windows help the dilapidation process) and live in it.

Various attempts would be made by the police and the authorities to throw them out and, because some of the folks were quite political in the anti-nuclear and other movements, police used to sweep through these squats to search for "trouble-makers" etc. The point was that by law you are supposed to be registered at your address and without a lease or ownership papers you could not and therefore you registered with friends - this living where you were not registered did not sit well with the authorities.

A hard core left-wing group within the house squatting scene were the autonomen (the autonomous guys). They were left-wing anarchists who wanted to make a part of Kreuzberg (and eventually everywhere else) into an autonomous area free from capitalist exploitation and police aggression. Eventually, these rather run-down but generally very safe areas in Berlin changed, the folks got older and some of the squatted buildings were handed over to the squatters and now look very nice.

But the movement moved over to the former East Berlin where there were plenty of older dilapidated buildings around for landlords and squatters to fight over. However, the squatted house movement kinda died down because with unification there were plenty of properties for everyone and rents fell. However, the old sentiments die hard and I hear that the legentary street fights between the police and protesters continue and the Mayday event is looked forward to with relish each year by both sides.

Very few people are actually hurt during these riots and the number of deaths (of protesters) could be counted on the fingers of one hand over the last 40 years or so.

Incidentally, this is now a solely Berlin scene - you will not find it in other parts of Germany.

[Scott]

Thanks for that very helpful explanation.