Leipzig: Police speak of “severe riots” – politics

In Leipzig on Saturday after the verdict against Lina E. for acts of violence against right-wing extremists, there were renewed clashes between the police and demonstrators. According to a police spokesman, the demonstration has been broken up and the situation is “quiet again.” The police have currently surrounded around 150 demonstrators to record their personal details. You are threatened with a charge of breach of the peace.

Previously there had been gunshots, stones, bottles and an incendiary device were thrown at police officers. The police spoke of “massive riots” in the south of Leipzig. Several water cannons were positioned but not used, the spokesman said. According to the police, around 1,500 participants had gathered at the demo. According to the police, a third of the demonstrators should have been violent. 100 demonstrators were registered.

The meeting initially remained peaceful, but then escalated – the reason for this is still unclear. Several officers were hit and injured by stones and other projectiles, the police spokesman said. He did not provide the exact number of injured officers. “The situation on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse is becoming unsettled. Our forces are repeatedly attacked and thrown at with stones/pyrotechnics,” the police wrote on Twitter on Saturday evening. One appeals to all people there to distance themselves from criminals and to behave peacefully.

Left-wing circles were mobilized nationwide for the demonstration on Saturday. The reason is the verdict against Lina E. and three co-defendants for attacks on alleged or actual neo-Nazis, in which several people were injured, some seriously. The 28-year-old was sentenced to five years and three months in prison by the Dresden Higher Regional Court on Wednesday.

“De-escalation looks different,” writes left-wing politician Köditz

Despite the final ban on a large “Day X” demonstration by the radical left-wing scene, the police were present in large numbers in the city. In addition, the Saxony Cup final, the city festival and a concert by Herbert Grönemeyer took place in the city. There were checkpoints all day long on access roads to the city and at the train station. Several vehicles and garbage cans were on fire early Saturday afternoon.

The “Day X” demo was supposed to take place on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. on Wolfgang-Heinze-Strasse. However, the city banned them. The ban had been confirmed by both the Leipzig Administrative Court and the Saxon Higher Administrative Court. A constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court was also unsuccessful. She was not accepted for decision.

After the riots, the left criticized the actions of the police. Your head of parliament in the Saxon state parliament, Marco Böhme, accused the police on Twitter of having allowed the situation to escalate with the “actual ban”. The left-wing member of the state parliament Kerstin Köditz criticized the decision not to let the demonstrators go. “De-escalation looks different,” writes the politician on Twitter. The left-wing alliance “Dresden Nazifrei” described the behavior of the police as “martial”.

Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer meanwhile defended the actions of the officials. “The goal is to protect people and property and to arrest violent criminals,” wrote the CDU politician on Twitter.

There had already been riots in Connewitz on Friday evening. Masked men had attacked police officers. After the initially peaceful course of a meeting on Wiedebachplatz in the Connewitz district, stones were thrown out of a crowd of up to 700 hooded people and pyrotechnics were ignited. Barricades made of rubbish bins and construction site barriers burned both there and in side streets. The police used tear gas and, according to their own statements, objects were thrown at them from the roofs of houses. Most of the burning barricades were extinguished shortly after midnight, some with the help of water cannons. According to initial findings, 23 officers were injured. One of them was treated in the hospital. A journalist was reportedly attacked and slightly injured by an unknown person. It is determined, among other things, because of serious breaches of the peace. According to the information, five suspects were arrested and three people were taken into custody.

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