Berlin: Riots after the Köpi evacuation – cars demolished, police shot at with pyrotechnics

Stand: 11:15 p.m. | Reading time: 5 minutes

A.m Friday evening in Berlin-Neukölln under a lot of policeaccompanied a large-scale demonstration against the evacuation of the left-wing autonomous car park “Köpi”. Around 7,000 to 8,000 people gathered, pyrotechnics were ignited on the surrounding roofs and in the demonstration.

Police vehicles and policemen were shot at with fireworksn. The “Berliner Morgenpost“Reported demonstrators armed themselves with traffic signs and arbitrarily smashed parked cars. There were pictures of burning cars on “Twitter”. The demo moved to and through Kreuzberg.

At Oranienplatz, stones and bottles flew at the emergency services. the Panes from a “Lidl” branch were damaged, walls sprayed with “Antifa”. The police arrested several rioters. Access to Köpenicker Strasse was blocked off with a water cannon, among other things. When the demo train got there, the crowd dispersed. The demonstration was officially broken up at around 11 p.m.

Antifa circles announced at “Twitter“Already in the run-up to” riots “:” Tonight we will continue to take our anger on the street! Every eviction has its price. Tonight bangs! “, Was on the Twitter account of the Köpi residents to read. In a tweet there was at times also talk of “shattering the city” – it was then censored by “Twitter”.

When the “Köpi” car camp in Berlin’s Mitte district was cleared, the police took dozens of residents off the premises on Friday. By early afternoon there were 38, the police said. Their personal details were recorded. Nine people were still sitting on trees in the area. A police spokeswoman spoke of 21 arrests in the course of the operation. That includes the demonstrations around the site on Köpenicker Straße.

Officials advanced with heavy equipment on the premises on Köpenicker Straße. A clearing armor tore down a piece of fence behind which the residents had holed up. They had announced resistance. According to the police, objects were thrown at officers and fire extinguishers sprayed on them. For hours the camp covered the street and the police with loudspeaker announcements from a “moderator” who repeatedly insulted the officers, shouting “Fuck You” and “Piss off” alternately in English and German.

The camp is considered to be one of the last symbolic projects of the left-wing scene in Berlin. Accompanied by police officers, a bailiff entered the premises in the early afternoon. She examined the property, which is to be returned to the owner. The property owner had fought for the evacuation in court.

Before the evacuation, people could be seen on tall trees on the so-called Köpi-Platz. The spokeswoman for the project shouted via megaphone that an advance on the site would endanger human life. You “don’t put up with that,” she said, and berated the police. Smoke rose from the grounds. Objects flew outside. The police had been pelted with bottles and stones and some were sprayed with fire extinguishers. Police officers used pepper spray themselves. The area was cordoned off by the police.

2000 officers on duty

About 30 people lived in construction trailers on the approximately 2,600 square meter property next to a house occupied in 1990 on the former strip of the wall. The property owner successfully sued for eviction in June with reference to a building permit. The Berlin Court of Justice rejected an urgent application by the residents to stop the foreclosure on Wednesday.

Efforts were made to avert the eviction until the very end. The left-wing faction in the Berlin House of Representatives announced that the owner had offered the property for sale through brokers and had shown in negotiations to sell it to the state’s own housing association. The purchase price, purchase contract and notary appointment had already been fixed. “Then the owner broke the negotiations,” said a message from the Left on Thursday.

Cars and buildings were arbitrarily damaged in the area on Friday night. Windows were thrown in eleven cars, stones and paint bags were also blown onto buildings, windows were broken, according to a police spokeswoman.

The first meetings in the area around the car park took place on Thursday. A Demonstration train moved to the Jannowitzbrücke in the evening under the motto “Party instead of capitalism”, in the neighboring residential areas firecrackers, booming basses and police helicopters could be heard. Several participants set fire Bengalos.

Concert room, climbing wall, sports hall, cinema – all of this is available in the “Köpi”

Hundreds of supporters of the “Köpi” in Mitte and Friedrichshain protested against the eviction last weekend. In the past few nights, garbage cans and tires were set on fire in the area several times. On Wednesday morning strangers damaged the glazing of the entrance doors at the Bürgeramt in Berlin-Mitte and sprayed “Köpi stays” on the building.

A large rear building belongs to “Köpi”, but it should not be cleared. The building on the strip of the Wall in East Berlin was occupied in 1990, the year after the Wall came down. In addition to apartments on the upper floors, there is a concert room, a climbing wall, a small sports hall and a cinema in the basement and the lower floors.

The left-wing scene in Berlin has repeatedly fought against evictions. At the occupied house “Liebig 34” in Friedrichshain in October 2020, the resistance was smaller than on similar occasions before. During a fire protection test in the partially occupied house “Rigaer 94” in June, however, there was a violent attack on the police.