riots
Reappraisal: Police defend mission for “Day X”
Police officers are standing at an intersection in the Connewitz district. photo
© Sebastian Willnow/dpa
The left-wing autonomous “Day X” will keep Leipzig busy for a long time. The police are defending their robust approach, but the investigation has only just begun.
The police reject the criticism of their use of the left-wing autonomous “Day X” in Leipzig. “The assessment of the situation was simply that there were threats of causing several million euros in property damage. That simply cannot be prevented with classic means of de-escalation,” said Leipzig police chief René Demmler in an interview with the “Leipziger Volkszeitung”.
The head of the police union (GdP), Jochen Kopelke, also defended the approach. In situations like the weekend in Leipzig, a robust approach is necessary, he told SWR Aktuell.
Ten men were taken into custody in connection with the riots. According to the police, the evaluation of the operation will take several days. Only at the end of the week could it be said how many investigations were initiated in total.
riots over the weekend
There were riots in Leipzig on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Police officers were attacked with stones and firecrackers, numerous barricades were set on fire. Ten men between the ages of 20 and 36 were taken into custody, the prosecutor said. They are accused of serious breach of the peace, assault on law enforcement officers and sometimes attempted dangerous bodily harm. Two other arrest warrants were suspended against conditions.
The occasion was the long-awaited “Day X” – the Saturday after the verdict against left-wing extremist Lina E. The student and three accomplices were sentenced to several years in prison last week for assaulting alleged or actual neo-Nazis. In left-wing circles nationwide, there was a mobilization for “Day X”.
The city of Leipzig, as the assembly authority, reacted by banning the “Day X” demonstration. On Saturday, another meeting that was initially permitted ended. Many of the participants were masked in black. They ignored requests from the police to remove their masks. The situation escalated. The police locked around 1,000 people in a boiler for hours.
Criticism of police boiler
Criticism is particularly sparked by this police cauldron. The left-wing faction in the Saxon state parliament has requested a special session of the interior committee. The committee will probably meet next Monday, said parliamentary group spokesman Kevin Reissig on request. The left-wing domestic politician Kerstin Köditz had criticized that the “creation of inhumane conditions” was neither proportionate nor a contribution to de-escalation.
When asked why people had to endure up to eleven hours, police chief Demmler said the police underestimated how many people were actually there. “We had to determine the identity, then see who had already been suspicious. Then some of the people were taken to the detention center. Minors were given priority.”
Demmler: “What would have been the alternative?”
Demmler also rejected the accusation that the decision not to run the demo had created additional pressure and frustration. “What would have been the alternative? They would have shattered everything and we would have had to act even more massively. It would have been incredibly difficult to catch it again,” he said.
Another demonstration had been registered for Monday evening in the same square. Under the motto “Basic rights also apply in Leipzig”, protests were to be made against the restriction of freedom of assembly around “Day X”.