Dozens of police injured as eviction protest turns violent in Hamburg

Warum nicht resigniert merkel???

We are watching with concern the events. demonstrators' rights should be given immediately.

Hamburg residents have clashed with police in what is the most violent protest in years, with scores injured, after more than 7,000 took to the streets to protest plans to evict squatters from an old theater building, which is a leftist cultural center.

Police and protesters give conflicting figures, putting the number of participants anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 people, with more than 100 policemen and a yet unspecified number of protesters injured in Saturday’s civil unrest.

Police said that some 4,000 of the protesters were from extreme left-wing groups. The violence involved stone and bottle-throwing, firecrackers and smoke bombs. Police responded with pepper spray and water cannon.

What eventually led to an explosion in violence was caused by the sale of the left-wing Rote Flora cultural center by local authorities to a developer. Some squatters have been occupying the premises for 20 years now.

Overview shows German police as they block protesters on a cross road following clashes in front of the 'Rote Flora' cultural centre during a demonstration in Hamburg, December 21, 2013.(Reuters / Morris Mac Matzen)

It is said that an escalation took place soon after the beginning of the event in the afternoon, when some protesters started attacking police officers, although the atmosphere at the start was more peaceful and even festive, with confetti everywhere, as well as families seen with children.

All the while, the thousands of protesters shouted that “the city belongs to everyone,” one of their main slogans.

But as the rally in front of the Rote Flora got going, police showed up to clear away people with batons and a water cannon, their spokesman telling Deutsche Welle that “there was a mood of aggression from the outset,” adding that “we came under serious attack. It has become more violent than anything we have experienced in a long time.”

“Through the overwhelming use of batons, pepper spray and water cannon, there were numerous injuries,”said the organizers.

German police is attacked with fireworks during clashes in front of the 'Rote Flora' cultural centre during a demonstration in Hamburg, December 21, 2013. (Reuters / Morris Mac Matzen)

Those suspected of being the initial trouble-makers have been arrested – there were over 20 detentions on suspicion of breaching the peace.

The streets afterwards showed signs of much chaos, with police cars smashed along with various buildings, including the office of the Social Democrat party. There were broken glass fragments and road signs having been folded over as well as stones literally torn from the pavement to be used as weapons.

A German riot police officer uses his baton during clashes in front of the 'Rote Flora' cultural centre during a demonstration in Hamburg, December 21, 2013.(Reuters / Morris Mac Matzen)

Zeit Online has reported, citing a non-government organization, that about 500 protesters being injured, 20 of them seriously. However, this information cannot be independently verified.

The cultural center’s squatting history dates back to 1989, when the Schanzenviertel area’s Rote Flora center was first occupied. Since then, its reputation as the central point for leftist rallying has been further cemented.

But the public anger itself had also to do with the wider issue of migrant and refugee rights, including those of the squatters at a run-down apartment block in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn area – also the city’s red-light district, which contains the so-called Esso Houses. The buildings, also often home to Germany’s Lampedusa refugees, were evacuated last weekend because of their poor condition.

After the initial chaos at the Rote Flora had subsided, the crowds migrated toward the Reeperbahn, where they were chased around the streets by the police.

Protesters hold up a banner during clashes in front of the 'Rote Flora' cultural centre during a demonstration in Hamburg, December 21, 2013. (Reuters / Morris Mac Matzen)

German police use water cannons to clear a street following clashes in front of the 'Rote Flora' cultural centre during a demonstration in Hamburg, December 21, 2013.(Reuters / Morris Mac Matzen)

War of words in liberal Hamburg after protesters clash with police

Tension high as police stop and search hundreds of activists in 'danger zone' around Reeperbahn after December violence

Hamburg's reputation as a liberal city where police, punks and prostitutes happily co-exist has taken a heavy knock after a succession of violent clashes resulted in police taking the unprecedented step of declaring a large area around the Reeperbahn a "danger zone".

Hundreds have been stopped and searched after clashes between police and protesters at the end of December. The protesters – some demonstrating against gentrification, others pursuing an anarchist agenda – said they were kettled, pepper-sprayed and attacked with batons. Police said they were pelted with rocks, firecrackers and pavement slabs.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported "scenes reminiscent of a civil war". The US embassy issued warnings to American citizens travelling to the city.

The danger zone has since been reduced to three "danger islands", but not before 190 people were banned from the area, 65 detained and five arrested.

Much of the controversy centres on events at the Davidwache police station, a 100-year-old institution beloved by many in the city, where Paul McCartney spent a night after being arrested for arson in 1960.

Ulrich Wagner, the officer in charge of the area around the Reeperbahn, blamed "an unprecedented attitude of violence against the state and police" among leftwing activists. A line was crossed when three of his officers were targeted by a group of up to 40 hooded attackers outside the station, he said, with one policeman suffering a broken jaw.

Since the attack, even the more seasoned leftist radicals in the area had privately distanced themselves from a younger, less political generation mainly bent on violence and confrontation, Wagner told the Guardian.

Down the road at the Rote Flora cultural centre, which has been the focus of leftwing activism in Hamburg since it was first squatted in 1989, Klaus Alfijesky and Lotta Kalweit accused the police of provoking the clashes with months of aggressive controls in the area.

They said reports of the attack on the Davidwache had been skewed to demonise the left. Initial reports suggested the attack took place inside the police station itself.

Some witnesses have claimed the attackers were drunken football hooligans without a political motive. "The police is blatantly spreading lies about the incident, and it has political motives for doing so," Kalweit said.

Hamburg used to be seen as a Social Democrat stronghold. In 2001 the SPD lost its grip on power – partly, some commentators felt, because it seemed too soft on security issues. Though the Social Democrats are back in charge of the city, many accuse the mayor, Olaf Scholz, of being too traumatised by the previous defeat to establish a more lenient line. The law that allowed the police to establish the danger zone was introduced during conservative rule in 2005 and remains untouched.

But many feel the real reason for tensions in Hamburg has been obscured by the recent war of words. The demonstrations before Christmas also included large groups of activists from Recht auf Stadt, an umbrella group opposing gentrification.

"Hamburg is a good example of a city that has gradually lost its industrial status, and is now desperately trying to compete with Berlin for wealthy mobile professionals", said Christoph Twickel, a local journalist active in the movement.

One reason Hamburg citizens took to the streets in the first place, he said, was the fear that their city may go the way of London or Paris, with low earners pushed to the edges of the city. "In the industrial age, clashes between the privileged few and the disadvantaged took place around the factories. Now, those battles are fought over access to our inner cities."

Shortly before start of the uprisings, local authorities ordered the eviction of the Esso buildings on the Reeperbahn, a former social housing block occupied mainly by elderly people and those on low incomes. Some accuse the city of looking on as the owner allowed the building to decay until it was close to collapse – "a classic gentrification tactic", said the activist Steffen Jörg.

Surprisingly, perhaps, their sentiments were echoed within the Davidwache. "Yes, I can understand that people are worried about the area losing its charm," Wagner said. "I love St Pauli, it's an area with a social conscience." For now, he can count himself lucky: his police station is one of the few listed buildings on the Reeperbahn.