Press release #16 from 8 July 2017
Directly after the day of action against the G20 summit on 7 July and the police’s evacuation of the Schanzenviertel quarter, the LKA (police authority of the federal state) raided the international centre B5 in the Brigittenstrasse in St.Pauli. At 10:45am an arrest and evidence collection unit stormed the club house and assaulted the people present at the time. Without naming reasons, the people present were constrained and the club’s rooms as well as two private flats in the same building were searched. The basement rooms of the adjacent cinema B-Movie as well as the buying cooperation FoodCoop were rummaged through. During the raids two people were injured and then denied medical attention. The raid by the LKA was executed after having been tipped off by the federal state’s constitution protection agency. Allegedly Molotov cocktails were produced in the rooms which turned out to be an unsubstantiated claim.
On Friday night Hamburg police published an evidence gathering online service with the call to upload potentially incriminating photos and video footage of the protests. Half a day after the publication police officials rejoiced saying that more than 1000 files had been uploaded. Through their call to denunciation and treason the police provoked an „online with hunt“ which it hypocritically refuted afterwards.
On 8 July a massive demonstration with the motto „Solidarity without borders instead of G20“ organised by a big leftist alliance took place. Police forces controlled participants on their way to the demonstration’s starting point. The police redirected a bus by the Falken from Northrine-Westphalia directly to a holding facility for the newly arrested in Harburg and recorded all the personal information of the passengers. At the camp in Altona the police intended to carry out tent and personal examinations which could be prevented by the present lawyers. During the demo there were several police operations against protesters. Hamburg activists were particularly targeted by an arrest and evidence gathering unit.
Throughout the entire city of Hamburg police were looking for international activists in hostels and at train stations. Reportedly the authorities were especially looking for Italian and French protesters while also looking for Kurdish flags. Already during the big rally about 15 Italians had been arrested, inclunding a member of the European Parliament.
According to the G20 legal team’s knowledge, orders for arrest were issued against 15 people, 28 remain in preventive custody. Some of the detainees were transferred to the prisons in Billwerder and Hanöversand. Despite the available capacities, cells at the detention centre in Harburg were overbooked without any necessity. Certain cells were occupied by eight rather than the intended five inmates. The temperature in the cells was at 35°C. Despite previous announcements the detainees were not allocated climatised cells. Some of them reported that they only received two slices of bread over the course of 24 hours.
On Sunday, 9 July a demonstration will take place at the detention centre in Harburg. The G20 legal team will support detainees and other victioms of repression over the coming days.