Rostock, Germany - Radical demonstrators clashed with riot
police in the German city of Rostock Monday, two days after clashes
at protests against this week's G8 (Group of Eight) summit.
Police said by late afternoon they had made around 50 arrests, but
the violence was on a lesser scale than on Saturday, when nearly
1,000 people including both police and demonstrators were injured.
Around 10,000 demonstrators rallied against immigration
restrictions, police said in Rostock, 25 kilometres north-east of the
Heiligendamm summit venue.
Riot police delayed the march for a few hours, demanding that
masked militants remove balaclavas and empty their rucksacks of
stones and potential weapons.
Earlier in the day, demonstrators had briefly blocked all
entrances to a building housing immigration authorities.
A wide spectrum of anti-G8 groups, ranging from Christian
pacifists to left-wing extremists including foreigners who reject all
state authority, have gathered in Rostock before the three-day summit
begins this Wednesday.
Most of the protesters promised not to turn violent, but police
estimated 2,000 in the city were potential 'Black Block' activists
who march masked, wearing black clothes and at the ready to fight
with police.
Police said that of nine people remanded in custody on assault
charges after the Saturday riots, two were Spanish, one Ukrainian,
one Polish, one Belgian and four German.
Police detained 128 persons Saturday, 16 of them non-Germans. Most
were freed without being arraigned but may be charged later.
Leaders of Attac, a group that considers globalization dangerous,
admitted Friday they had little influence on the militants, who
adhere to far-left doctrines.
Sven Giegold of Attac said on N-TV news, 'I don't think it is
going to be peaceful in the next few days.' Attac would try to
prevent riots, but had no influence on 'hooligans' for whom Attac was
a dirty word.
Germans differed widely in their response to the riots.
Some protesters accused police of 'provoking' violence by sending
phalanxes into the crowd to arrest stone-throwers, whereas police
trade-union leaders said riot control had to be stringent or police
would sustain fatalities.
Political parties including the Greens, who had a delegation at
the demonstration, condemned the radicals.
In Berlin, interior ministry spokesman Stefan Kaller denied that
spot-checks at German borders and airports had been too lax. Germany
normally has no passport checks on arrivals from 14 European nations,
but travellers have had to present their identity documents since
late May.
Kaller said that measure had enabled border police to check
500,000 arrivals, denying entry to 85 persons.
Groups of protestors had earlier hailed the Saturday rally
throughout Europe as a riposte to the club of seven Western nations
and Russia, which are to discuss economic, climate-change and other
policies at the G8 meeting.
At the German constitutional court in Karlsruhe, officials said a
ruling was likely Tuesday or Wednesday on an urgent protesters'
appeal for permission to march to the gates of the summit compound
this Thursday.
Last week, a tribunal ruled that the Thursday protest must stay on
a motorway which runs no closer than six kilometres to the summit
hotel.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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