Hamburg police clear street after 2nd day of violent G20 protests

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Hamburg police clear street after violent G20 protests

Police officers assisted by riot police succeeded in clearing most of the Schulterblatt, which had earlier been the scene of intense clashes with protesters, at around midnight on Friday.

The street is near the Rote Flora, a former theatre that is a centre of the northern port city’s left-wing scene. It has become a base for protesters agitating against the G20 summit. Police blocked access to the street early Saturday.

Hamburg police spokesman Timo Zill said he was shocked at the riots which have taken place around the G20. “We have never experienced this level of hate and violence,” he told the Bild tabloid.

Earlier protesters had set vehicles and barricades on fire, looted shops and thrown objects at police, who countered them with water cannon and tear gas. Police said 197 officers were injured, though none seriously.

But protesters decried what they called a heavy-handed approach by the authorities.

A so-called G20 investigatory committee which is in touch with demonstrators said their “pent-up rage” at what they termed “the violent excesses” of the police in recent days had led to “militant acts” and skirmishes with police. Full Story

Over 200 attacks on Muslims in the first quarter of the year

Police and constitutional protection agencies reported 208 offences of an anti-Islamic character in the first quarter of 2017, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper reported.

Muslims were verbally abused or attacked because of their religion or were victims of damage to property, mainly by right-wing extremists, the newspaper reported. The authorities said they were analyzing the data on “anti-Islamic crimes” for the first time as there are no comparative figures.

Attacks on mosques and other Islamic institutions, however, fell back to the level before the 2015 refugee crisis. According to the government, 15 such attacks, including desecrations, were recorded in the first quarter. This is less than in the fourth quarter of 2016 when there were 27 attacks such attacks, and is at the level of early 2015.

There was also a fall in anti-Islamic demonstrations, of which there were 32 in the first three months of this year. In the first quarter of 2016, 80 such rallies were held. These figures do not include the Pegida march in Saxony, police said.

“I assume that the detected offenses are only the tip of the iceberg,” Ulla Jelpke, an expert from the Left party, said.

Pigs Ears

This week nine wooden spikes topped with parts of a dead pig were planted on a land where Muslims are planning to build a mosque in the eastern German city of Erfurt, German police said. Full Story

Tension mounts over German anti-Islam protests

Prominent German politicians have spoken out against the growing anti-immigration protests in the country. Yesterday’s (5 January) rally in Dresden, which attracted 18,000 people, was the largest gathering of the protest movement Pegida since it started in October.

Pegida – Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, which translates as patriotic Europeans against the islamisation of the West – was founded in Dresden, in the former East Germany, in response to a rally of Kurds supporting the Islamic group IS. Demonstrations are being held every Monday against what the protesters see as the failure of the government to counter the growing influence of Islam in Germany.

Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, in her new-year address, spoke out against the rising tide of anti-Islamisation and called on Germans not to participate in such demonstrations. She said they should “consider who they are marching with” and added that the Pegida protesters had “hatred in their hearts”.

Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s former chancellor (1974-82), said that the protests appealed to “prejudice, xenophobia and intolerance”. Wolfgang Schäuble, the country’s centre-right finance minister since 2009, said: “Germany needs migrants. We have to open our heart for refugees in need.” Full Story

Hamburg police clear street after violent G20 protests

Over 200 attacks on Muslims in the first quarter of the year

Pigs Ears

Tension mounts over German anti-Islam protests

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