protests
Banned “Day X” demo: police expect influx of thousands
Autonomous ignite pyrotechnics. photo
© Sebastian Willnow/dpa
After the first riots, the police in Leipzig braced themselves for further influx of the radical left scene. The “Day X” demonstration had been banned by the city. Access roads are now checked.
Despite the ban on the “Day X” demo of the radical left scene, the police in Leipzig are preparing for the influx of thousands of people. A number in the mid four-digit range is still being calculated, said a police spokeswoman for the German Press Agency. That is why checkpoints were set up on access roads. By noon, however, no major inflow had been observed there.
In left-wing circles nationwide, the solidarity demonstration was mobilized on Saturday. The reason for this is the verdict against the student Lina E. and three co-defendants for attacks on alleged or actual neo-Nazis. The 28-year-old was sentenced to five years and three months in prison by the Dresden Higher Regional Court on Wednesday for left-wing violence. The city had the demo under the motto “United we stand – Despite everything, defend autonomous anti-fascism!” forbidden. The reason was threats of violence in social networks, the risk forecast by the police and assessments by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Complaints against this before the Administrative Court and the Higher Administrative Court were unsuccessful.
According to a statement from the Higher Administrative Court, the ban is a serious encroachment on the fundamental right to freedom of assembly. However, it is permissible to protect equivalent legal interests. The city had plausibly predicted “an expected violent course of the meeting and thus an immediate danger to public safety”. It is very likely that participants planned violence against people or things or at least approved of such behavior by others.
riots in the night
Hooded police officers had already attacked on Friday evening. After the initially peaceful course of a meeting on Wiedebachplatz in the Connewitz district, stones and pyrotechnics flew out of a crowd of up to 700 hooded people. Barricades made of rubbish bins and construction site barriers burned both there and in side streets. The police used tear gas and said they were “objects thrown at” 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 required hospital treatment. A journalist was attacked by an unknown person and slightly injured. 17 police vehicles were damaged and eight vehicles were set on fire. Among them were also cars from residents, it said. By early morning there had been four preliminary arrests, among other things for serious breaches of the peace.
The Leipzig member of the state parliament Juliane Nagel (left) sharply criticized bans on assemblies in the city. They are “legally and politically highly dubious,” she wrote on Twitter. She also spoke of “police harassment” that heated up the mood. “This leads to the opposite of what many wish for: a peaceful course of the day. I still hope for it.”
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