Anti-globalization activists rioted violently for a second night as Hamburg hosted Group of 20 leaders, setting up street barricades, looting supermarkets and attacking police with slingshots and firebombs on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Police said riots were extremely aggressive in the early hours of Saturday in the city\u2019s Schanzenviertel neighborhood, which is only a few hundred meters (yards) away from the summit grounds. Hundreds of officers went into buildings to arrest rioters wearing black masks from rooftops while being attacked with iron rods and Molotov cocktails. Thirteen activists were arrested when special units stormed one building.<\/p>\n
About 500 people looted a supermarket in the neighborhood as well as smaller stores. Cars were torched and street fires lit as activists built barricades with garbage cans and bikes.<\/p>\n
Laura Zeriadtke watched the full-scale clashes unfold from her street-level apartment window and witnessed about 30 black-clad anarchists tearing down a construction fence across from her home and using it as a shield to push back riot police.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a civil war,\u201d Zeriadtke said, adding that there were many teenagers among the rioters.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s mayor, Olaf Scholz, called on the rioters to halt the violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m appealing to the violent protesters to stop what they\u2019re doing and to withdraw and to no longer commit any violent crimes,\u201d Scholz said. \u201cI\u2019m very concerned about the destruction \u2026 and the brutality against our police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamburg, Germany\u2019s second-largest city, has a strong radical left scene. Many critics had warned well before the summit that its dense streets would be almost impossible to control and clashes would be likely.<\/p>\n
But, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said, \u201cany criticism of the location of the meeting misjudges cause and effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were unbounded violent excesses out of a desire for destruction and brutality,\u201d de Maiziere said. He added that police and judicial authorities must take a tough stance against such crimes and that the arrests were appropriate.<\/p>\n
World leaders have come together in the northern German port city for two days to tackle contentious issues including terrorism, climate change and trade.<\/p>\n
Most protesters expressed their views peacefully, asking for quick action on climate change and solutions to the migration crisis. But a few thousand rioters, some of them from elsewhere in Europe, created havoc in the city. They\u2019ve battled riot police for two consecutive days, expressing rage against capitalism and globalization and called for open borders to let all refugees enter Europe.<\/p>\n
Their anger was not so much focused against President Donald Trump or other leaders, but directed against police as symbols of authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was organized and long-prepared criminal violence as we have never witnessed it before,\u201d city official Andy Grote told reporters.<\/p>\n
Police arrested 143 people, and 122 activists were temporarily detained. More than 200 officers have been injured since the start of the protests Thursday night. Police and firefighters said they did not have information about how many protesters and other civilians were hurt.<\/p>\n
A 27-year-old German man was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly using a laser pointer to temporarily blind pilots of a police helicopter patrolling from above the city.<\/p>\n
Later, special units raided a culture center that\u2019s known to be a meeting point for violent protesters. Officers confiscated illegal firecrackers, but didn\u2019t make any arrests.<\/p>\n
Even one of the organizers of the more radical leftist protests distanced himself from the overnight riots in Schanzenviertel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the impression that \u2026 some kind of militancy was taken to the streets, that people get a high on it,\u201d Andreas Blechschmidt, of the alternative culture center Rote Flora at Schanzenviertel, told public broadcaster NDR. \u201cWe think that\u2019s politically and substantially wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police called on witnesses of the riots to upload photos and video footage on their server to help with the investigation and prosecution of violent activists.<\/p>\n
The epicenter of the overnight mayhem was near the Bok Asian restaurant. Cook Hongching Laapha looked out of a shattered window into the street where garbage had burned so hot it left the asphalt melted and pitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nothing until 9 p.m. when we closed, then it got so bad. There was a huge fire,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ludwig Geiss, a 65-year-old long-time resident of the area, said that he\u2019d gotten used to the many protests in the alternative neighborhood, but had never experienced anything like the G-20 chaos.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the scene, but what happened yesterday \u2026 puts it all in the shadows,\u201d Geiss said as he was evaluating the damage outside his apartment. \u201cI\u2019m not staying here another night.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on Saturday morning, the scene was calm and quiet. City cleaners quickly took to the streets sweeping up rubble and using heavy construction equipment to haul away the leftovers of barricades and fires.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in Hamburg, peaceful protesters started new marches holding up red balloons and dancing through the streets to live music.<\/p>\n
Activists from the environmental Greenpeace group scaled a bridge and unfurled a banner saying, \u201cG-20: End Coal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting global warming is one of the major issues on the G-20 agenda, but negotiations are proving to be difficult since the US left the international Paris climate agreement a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Later on Saturday, around 20,000 protesters marched through the city again under the slogan \u201cborderless solidarity,\u201d but they remained peaceful.<\/p>\n
(Egypt Independent)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anti-globalization activists rioted violently for a second night as Hamburg hosted Group of 20 leaders, setting up street barricades, looting supermarkets and attacking police with slingshots and firebombs on Saturday. Police said riots were extremely aggressive in the early hours of Saturday in the city\u2019s Schanzenviertel neighborhood, which is only a few hundred meters (yards) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":19640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7863],"tags":[12912,12911],"class_list":["post-19639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-section","tag-hamburg","tag-riot"],"yoast_head":"\n