WEB DESK
More Policemen have been deployed Hamburg to crack down on demonstrators as violent protests against the G20 summit threaten to go out of control. On day on eof the Summit city witnessed scores of injuries and arrests.
Leaders from world’s top 20 economies meeting in Hamburg. The escalating violence prompted Hamburg’s police to call in reinforcements from around Germany to help the 15,000 officers already deployed to the northern port city for the G20 summit.
There are many casualties among both police and protesters. By Friday evening, 175 police officers were reported injured. Some were hit with objects lodged from catapults. A manned police car was attacked and had its windows smashed. Another was hit by a petrol bomb which did not ignite. Two helicopter pilots were dazzled with lasers and had to be treated for eye injuries.
Earlier in the day, the Hamburg police said that at least 11 demonstrators had been severely injured.
Hamburg’s interior senator Andy Grote told the media that there were “high levels of criminal energy” in the city, as well as “a disturbingly high potential for violence”.
According to DW, as the sun rose over Hamburg on the first day of the G20 summit, the protesters were already out. They were there to block roads, to slow down the convoys of world leaders. From 7:00 a.m. there were disturbances and standoffs in many parts of the city.
By 9:00 a.m. the police water cannon were in action – aimed at protesters who were refusing to budge from a street. Similar scenes unfolded again and again throughout the day.
At Schlump metro station, not far from the summit, things stayed peaceful, despite a lengthy standoff. Two young men wearing blue ‘Block G20′ T-shirts who didn’t want to give their names emerged from a church which had opened its doors to the demonstrators.
“We took to the roads this morning in order to stop the summit, to make it as hard as possible for the powerful to meet,” one of them said. “We were surrounded by the police soon after we arrived.”
Many arrested
Eighty-three protesters were arrested during the day on Friday. That number is set to rise significantly as the evening wears on. In the afternoon, an unannounced demonstration drew thousands to the riverfront once again – the scene of last night’s clashes between protesters and the police.
As the summit participants left the convention center underneath low-flying helicopters, the tension in the city was palpable. Their destination: a concert and dinner in Hamburg’s prestigious new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie.