Press release #15, 8th July 2017

On 7th July 2017 the G20 summit in Hamburg officially opened – the protests on the other hand had started long before. Although 15.000 police officers were present in the city already the deployment of further police forces was requested and approved. Nevertheless the police lost complete control over some parts of Hamburg during the night after opening day. Neither the use of more than 20 water cannons nor armed vehicles, neither the massive use of riot control agents nor physical assaults made it possible to regain control. Ultimately even heavily armed special riot control squads were patrolling in the streets.

After midnight one of these special units equipped with machine guns forced their way into a house on „Beim Grünen Jäger“ street, where demo medics were taking care of injured persons – including one seriously injured person, who needed to be transferred to hospital care. The police stormed the premises at gunpoint screaming »hands up« and made unmistakably clear that otherwise the firearms would be used. Thereafter the medics were arrested one by one; at the time of writing they had all been released again. The seriously injured person could only be brought to an ambulance after negotiating with the police forces present.

Police not only used brute force in the streets but also showed violent behaviour in the temporary detention centre (Gefangenensammelstelle, GeSa), Schlachthofstraße in Hamburg-Harburg. In the night of 7th/ 8th July a lawyer was physically attacked by three police officers after objecting to the full body search of his client. The lawyer insisted that his client would not need to get undresses, whereupon several police men grabbed the lawyer in question, twisted his arm and dragged him out of the detention centre. These incidents will mainly have one effect: increasing hatred of police.