Welcome to hell, vow anti-G20 protesters
Germany braces for demos before leaders meet
HAMBURG: A 10-minute walk from Germany’s heavily-guarded G20 summit venue in the port city of Hamburg lies the graffiti-covered centre of the leftwing protest movement vowing to disrupt it.
“Capitalism will end anyway – you decide when!” reads a banner atop the Rote Flora, a former vacant theatre that was occupied by squatters in 1989 in the midst of demonstrations and street battles.
In most years, especially on May 1 Labour Days, black-clad youths with balaclavas have hurled rocks and fireworks at armoured riot police who have responded with batons, pepper spray and water cannon.
The rowdy annual ritual tends to end with several burning cars and smashed shop windows.
But this year promises to be far hotter than most, with the world leaders of the Group of 20 big industrialised and emerging economies coming to town on July 7-8.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited the leaders to the city of her birth, among them US President Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Posters and stickers covering the Rote Flora and walls in cities across Germany have for months rallied demonstrators to “Shut down” or “Smash the G20”, with 30 demonstrations announced in the summit week starting Sunday.
“Welcome to hell” is the eye-catch- ing motto of one of the rallies seen as likely to escalate, organised for July 6 by veteran Rote Flora activist Andreas Blechschmidt.
“It’s a combative message ... but it’s also meant to symbolise that G20 policies worldwide are responsible for hellish conditions like hunger, war and the climate disaster,” he said.
Organisers expect a peak of over 100,000 demonstrators, while police estimate a hard core of 8,000 leftwing extremists considered likely to use violence.
“It will be the biggest operation in the history of Hamburg’s police,” said police spokesman Timo Zell.
About 20,000 officers will secure Germany’s second city and the summit venues, a conference centre and the harbourside concert hall. Police have warned protesters who may be thinking of a sit-in in front of Trump’s armoured presidential limousine known as “The Beast” that it may not stop.
Many Hamburg residents are fleeing town to evade traffic jams, ID checks and the noise of police helicopters above.
Protesters have voiced anger about the city turning into a police “fortress”.
Georg Ismael, 25, of leftist group ArbeiterInnenMacht, said that given how police “are trying to put pressure on the organisations mobilising against the G20, you can expect them to be violent”.
“We are prepared and we’ll try to defend our democratic rights to assemble.”