GERMAN POLICE prepare for waves of protests.
HAMBURG, Germany — President Donald Trump was met with thousands of protesters when he arrived at meetings in Brussels in May. But with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joining him at the Group of 20 meetings in Germany this week, Trump is unlikely to be the only target for demonstrators.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders whose policies have sparked unrest also will attend the meetings in Hamburg, a short walk from a notorious hotbed of leftist protesters.
“G-20: Welcome to Hell” is the slogan anti-globalization activists have registered for their protests when Trump and other leaders arrive for the summit that begins Friday in the northern port city of Hamburg.
“We are calling on the world to make Hamburg a focal point of the resistance against the old and new capitalist authorities,” said the organizers, who have ties to the Rote Flora squat, a former theater that has become a center for radical leftists where police have clashed frequently with protesters.
The site is less than a mile from where the leaders will be meeting.
In the weeks leading up to the summit, police cars have been burned and train lines have been sabotaged. In several raids, authorities in Hamburg and the nearby city of Rostock have confiscated improvised weapons such as fire extinguishers filled with flammable liquid, baseball bats and other items.
“We have to assume that this is only a tiny percentage of what is still in basements and garages in and around Hamburg,” Hamburg police Criminal Director Jan Hieber said this week.
The “Welcome to Hell” demonstration is just one of dozens of protests that have been registered under a variety of themes — including a far-right pro-Trump rally — with more than 100,000 demonstrators from across Europe and beyond expected to take part.
Officials estimate that about 8,000 protesters from Europe’s violent leftist scene will be on hand, and authorities have been tracking known activists arriving from Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy and elsewhere, Hamburg Police Chief Ralf Martin Meyer said.
“This isn’t about sit-ins,” Meyer said.
In a preview of things likely to come, police clashed in Hamburg with hundreds of protesters Tuesday night, using pepper spray and water cannons to eventually gain control of the crowd.
That’s not to say all protesters are violent — most see the gathering as an opportunity to highlight their messages with the world watching and hope the assembled leaders will listen.
Greenpeace, for example, regards the G-20 as a chance for the leaders to send a strong signal about fighting climate change — despite the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement on reducing emissions.
Like many nonprofits, Greenpeace is fighting a security decision to block off a 15-square-mile “no-protest zone” encompassing the airport where leaders will arrive and the conference center where they will meet.
The group is calling for residents who live within the security zone to hang flags and banners out of their windows so the world leaders will see them on the way in.
Still, German security officials are preparing for the worst, drawing upon decades of experience dealing with violent May Day demonstrations and other protests at major events.
In addition to the no-protest zone, tightly secured transit corridors were set up to ensure that convoys will be able to keep moving so they don’t become targets for violent demonstrators or extremist attacks.
Hamburg is boosting its police force with reinforcements from around the country and will have 20,000 officers on hand to patrol the city’s streets, skies and waterways.
“You can be certain that you will see all of the equipment that German police have here in Hamburg,” said Hartmude Dudde, who is leading the security team for the Hamburg police. That includes both underwater and aerial drones.
On the outskirts of the city, a former wholesale supermarket has been converted into a special temporary prison with holding cells for 400 people, and judges are on hand to decide whether there’s enough evidence to keep them longer or set them free.
“Peaceful protest is welcome in our democracy… but violent protest will be stopped,” Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, said this week.