© Hannibal Hanschke / ReutersA police helicopter lights a street as anti-G20 protesters burn fires in the middle of the Hamburg Schanze district, July 7, 2017.
Violent protests against the G20 summit in Hamburg continued for the second night with rioters attacking police, erecting barricades and trashing shops and vehicles.
At least 143 people have been detained and over 200 police officers injured so far."We have never experienced this level of hate and violence," Hamburg police spokesman Timo Zill told the
Bild tabloid.
Demonstrators were armed with Molotov cocktails and iron bars, police
said in a press statement.
"At the interception Schanzenviertel district [in central Hamburg], the forces were permanently subjected to violent attacks," the statement added.
The protesters damaged shops and vehicles, police said, adding that some 500 people looted a supermarket on Friday night during ongoing protests.
About 250 protesters erected barricades in the Schlump / Schäferkampsallee area in the center of the city, using trash cans, bicycles and road signs. Several vehicles were set on fire.
One of protesters, however, told
DW that police are fueling the anger at the rallies.
"The police are provoking people by running into the protests, crowding people together so that they start to panic. They know people will get injured," he
said.
At least 213 police officers have been injured in the protests, police said on Saturday morning."I am shaken over the violence that many had to endure, with their vehicles or property destroyed, or witnessing this brutality against police officers," Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz
said.
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas
slammed the protests on Twitter.
"Criminals belong before courts, not on the street," he tweeted.
The anti-globalist demonstrations in Hamburg were organized under the
slogan "Welcome to Hell." The protests turned violent on Thursday night, erupting in confrontations with police. Clashes began in the evening, with police using pepper-spray and water cannons against the rioters.
Speaking to the German broadcaster NDR, a spokesman for the "Welcome to Hell" demo, Andreas Blechschmidt,
distanced himself from "senseless violence" and heavy rioting.
On Friday evening, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that such violent clashes are unacceptable.
"I have every understanding for peaceful demonstrations, 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," she said.
Burnt-out barricades, smashed-up buildings: Hamburg awakes to carnage after night of G20 riots
Piles of wreckage, burned-out barricades and broken glass all around - Hamburg now looks like a battle field rather than the host city of a G20 summit, based on photos and videos. The city is bracing for another wave of protests.
The sidewalk has been damaged and the city services are currently removing bottles and broken glass from the streets.
© Wikipedia / AFP
"The violence yesterday evening was awful. And I also don't understand the message they're trying to send. It is violence. It is simply tragic," one resident told RT.
© dieschanze / han_saparkschinski / Instagram
Photos and videos on social media show the city streets filled with broken glass and the remnants of barricades.
© RT
"What was clear from the very beginning was that the police did nothing. The officers gathered in small groups. Generally, you could say it was incompetence," another city resident said.
© RT
Store owners in the Schanzenviertel area are in no hurry to clean up and repair smashed windows as the city expects another mass anti-globalization rally in the coming hours.
"A lot of places are closed. So we can't work productively. There is total collapse of transportation. You can't come in, you can't get out of town. That affects us and our freedom," a local shop owner told RT.
© RT
A Ruptly video shows the scale of damage in the Neuer Pferdemarkt district of Hamburg following the night of clashes, including badly damaged stores and burnt-out barricades in the G20 host city.
"Long Live Anarchy," a sign says on the wall of one building, an RT video shows.
© RT
Many buildings near Rote Flora, a former theater where violent clashes took place on Friday, don't have any windows, a TASS correspondent from the scene said.
In the meantime, German police are bracing for a huge new wave of protests on Saturday.
© RT
A demonstration under the slogan "G20 - not welcome!" saw 20,000 people gather in the Deichtorplatz area of the city center on Saturday morning, police tweeted. A separate demonstration, "Hamburg shows attitude!", drew some 2,000 participants, police said, adding that both marches have been peaceful so far.
© RT
Elsewhere, Greenpeace activists scaled the iconic 50-meter-high Köhlbrand bridge and held a banner reading, "G-20: End Coal."
Reader Comments
The operation is a feast of big spending/corruption, extreme surveillance and "threat assessment", mass infiltration, illegal preventive arrests, general paranoia and disruption of daily lives on the altar of security. If you get the picture.
No more G7, G20, Eurotop elite conspiracy meetings in places where people live! Those should be held on islands, made out of rubble, left over from earlier wars.
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