G-20 CLASHES leave dozens of police, activists injured.
HAMBURG, Germany — Anti-globalization activists clashed violently with police across the German port city of Hamburg all day Friday, setting cars ablaze, throwing bottles and trying to enter the convention center where Group of 20 leaders tackled topics such as international terrorism, climate change and trade.
Responding to a second day of protests, police ordered in more than 900 additional officers from across the country to get the clashes under control. At least 196 police officers were injured, dozens of activists had to be taken to the hospital, and more than 100 protesters were arrested, police said Friday evening.
Both numbers were expected to rise as strife continued late into the evening.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the violent protests as “unacceptable.”
“I have every understanding for peaceful demonstrations,” Merkel said. “But violent demonstrations endanger human lives, they endanger people themselves, they put police officers and security forces in danger, put residents in danger, and so that is unacceptable.”
The discord has produced debate about security and free expression in the port city that, for a thousand years, has connected northern Europe to the far reaches of the globe. Its trademark openness is being tested as protesters — who could number as many as 100,000 by today — turned the city into a site of a global contest over capitalism and environmental degradation, among many concerns.
“This week is about Angela Merkel’s austerity policy going global via G-20,” said Jan van Aken, a member of the German Parliament from the farleft Die Linke party.
He accused the German government of seeking to suppress protest, saying its approach was autocratic.
Protests started early in the day: There were sit-down protests under a rainbow display of umbrellas. Students marched, calling for social justice. And some people took to a fleet of rubber boats, demanding solidarity with refugees.
Protesters were soon engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with police, who lined city streets to block off the areas where gatherings were taking place.
About 350 people tried to break through one police line, but they were pushed back with pepper spray and billy clubs, Hamburg police said.
Thousands of officers in full riot gear patrolled as many as 30 different protest marches. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but some rioters threw gasoline bombs, iron rods and cobblestones through the city.
Crowds were expected to receive a high-profile boost after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would join a major rally today.
As night fell, some lit fires in the streets of the city’s Schanzenviertel neighborhood.
By midnight, the neighborhood, a center of the city’s leftist activism, had become a battlefield, where about 1,500 militant protesters had set up barricades, smashed store windows and lit fires in the streets. Special forces carrying firearms were trying to clear the area, and authorities shut down some of the surrounding train stations. Police said heavily disguised protesters were attacking officers and throwing Molotov cocktails.
More than 20,000 officers were on hand to guard Hamburg’s streets, skies and waterways. Forty-five water cannons were available to disperse crowds, and a no-fly zone was in place over portions of the city.
Police trucks blasted protesters back with water cannons, and officers dragged away members of a group holding a sit-in at the entrance to the summit grounds after they jeered and yelled at a convoy heading inside.
Anti-globalization protesters also kept U.S. first lady Melania Trump from joining the spouses of the other world leaders at the summit.
She scrapped a planned boat ride on the Elbe River after police refused to allow her to leave the guesthouse where she and President Donald Trump are staying, citing concerns for her safety. A planned tour of a climate research facility was also canceled because the experts who were to give the tour were unable to get there.
“She was very much looking forward to the day,” said Stephanie Grisham, a spokesman for Melania Trump.
Violence seemed to be escalating Friday evening as anti-globalization activists forced their way into a closed train station by bending open the iron gates. Police responded by deploying a water cannon outside the Landungsbruecke station.
Protesters repeatedly tried pushing into the no-go zone — among them a group of 22 swimmers from Greenpeace who tried to access the area from the Elbe River but didn’t succeed, police said.
Later Friday, activists also attempted to get near Hamburg’s highly protected philharmonic hall, where the international leaders were attending the concert and were to then have dinner together. Greenpeace boats blasted music toward the performance hall to disrupt the leaders’ meeting.
Police condemned the “shocking criminal energy and high potential of violence” on display and tweeted a photograph of an officer with a bloody wound that they said was caused by slingshot catapults.
While most of the injured officers were hurt only slightly, some had to be taken to the hospital, including an officer whose eye was injured when a firework went off in front of him.
The city’s Fire Department said 11 activists were severely injured and hospitalized after falling off a 13-foot-tall wall after fleeing from a confrontation with riot police.
Police could not say how many activists were injured in the clashes, but the Fire Department said that as of Friday morning it had taken 60 protesters to hospitals across the city.
Information for this article was contributed by David Rising and Kirsten Grieshaber of The Associated Press; by Melissa Eddy, David Shimer and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times; and by Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post.