“Welcome to Hell:” G20 Protestors Take to the Streets
This past week, as the Group of 20 (or G20 for short) met in Hamburg, Germany for heads of state and government to peacefully discuss economic and foreign policy issues, hostile protests flooded the cities streets.
At least 213 police officers were injured during clashes with masked anarchist rioters on the streets of Hamburg this week, according to The Daily Express.
Over 30 anti-G20 demonstrations were planned surrounding the Summit, including Thursday evening’s “Welcome to Hell” demonstration. Quickly after its beginning, clashes between riot police and demonstrators broke out. Thousands of protesters clad in black chanted anti-capitalist slogans as they pelted police officers with glass bottles and set cars on fire, leading German police forces to retaliate with tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons, according to CNN. Hamburg Police said at least 114 protesters were arrested and 98 detained over the three days.
When Angela Merkel, German chancellor and G20 host, announced that the Summit would take place in Hamburg demonstratiors from across Europe started planning their right to assemble in the city but were quickly shut down when Greman authorities created a specific sectioned off area for the G20 summit.
This area — known as a “Red-Zone,” was to only be accessible to G20 leaders and their convoys and administrators. According to the New York Times, at least 15,000 riot police were deployed to protect the area.
On Friday morning, a coalition of protest groups organized as “Block G20 — Colour the Red Zone” attempted to break through into the restricted area and “commit a publicly announced mass breach of rule,” according to their action plan.
According to a statment on the groups website, the group accomplished its goal:
Block G20 has done what we have announced: Thousands have entered the Blue Zone. We were there, where we should not be: on the access routes and protocols to the summit, and we met with the courage of many to the spectacle of power. This morning we were several thousand, at 3 pm meeting place more than 10,000. The police have beaten us, attacked with pepper sprayers and jerks, but we have not given up, despite the unrestrained violence of the power of the state. Until that day, this day was our common success.‘Welcome to Hell’ organiser Andreas Blechschmidt said on the group’s blog that the rally’s motto is “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.”
Germany’s Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maiziere, decried the acts of violence and said that “…the brutality with which extremely violent chaos has taken place yesterday and before yesterday in Hamburg is incomprehensible and outrageous,” he told Die Welt newspaper. “These are not protesters, they are criminals.”
Not all the rallies turned violent though, on Saturday two separate groups marched the streets, with a starkly different dynamic compared to the previous day’s rallies.
The marches saw LGBT groups, Marxist collectives, migration lawyers, Chinese human rights activists, Kurdish independence movements, feminist organizations and environmental activists, according to CNN. These groups all walked together peacefully while riot police lead the groups.
All of these were issues on the agenda at the G20 Summit, with a focus on climate policy.
United States President, Donald Trump, clashed with other foreign leaders on his decision for the U.S. to leave the Paris Agreement. The final communique said: “We take note of the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Paris agreement.” It added: “The leaders of the other G20 members state that the Paris agreement is irreversible.”
Hannah Brockway
Go Think Initiative, Journalism Intern
@GoThinkInit
gothinkinitiative.org
