More unrest in Europe, this time Germany…
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Merkel calls for calm as rail protest turns ugly
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for calm Friday after riot police used what critics called “Rambo” tactics to disperse thousands of opponents of a contentious rail project.
“I would hope that demonstrations like these would pass off peacefully,” Merkel told public broadcaster SWR after the skirmishes in the southwestern city of Stuttgart on Thursday that raged on into the night.
“This must always be tried, and anything that leads to violence must be avoided.”
Demonstrators said that more than 20,000 protestors, including more than 1,000 schoolchildren, were dispersed by close to 1,000 police in riot gear using water cannons, pepper spray, tear gas and batons.
More than 400 people including minors needed medical treatment, mostly because of the tear gas and pepper spray but also due to broken noses and wrists as well as cuts, demonstrators said.
“One man’s eye was shot out after he was hit full in the face by water cannon,” Axel Wieland, a spokesman for the demonstrators from the BUND green pressure group, told AFP. A police spokeswoman confirmed this.
A total of 130 people were injured, police said. Sixteen people were taken to hospital. Twenty-six people were arrested, the youngest 15 and the oldest 68, police added.
A total of 130 people were injured and 16 taken to hospital, police said. Twenty-six were arrested, the youngest 15 and the oldest 68, they added.
Organisers hope that up to 100,000 people will take part in another demonstration and march through the city on Friday from 7:00 pm (1700 GMT). The Green party called for protests at train stations around the country.
A government spokesman in Berlin declined to pass judgement before all the facts were known, but noted that police had said that some of the demonstrators were violent, throwing objects and setting fire to two rubbish bins.
“They may have thrown chestnuts, but they also threw other things,” Stefan Mappus, premier of Baden-Wuerttemberg state, told reporters. “I have full confidence in the police.”
But Matthias von Herrmann, another spokesman for the demonstrators, disagreed, telling rolling news channel N24: “This was a peaceful protest action free of violence. The only violence was that committed by the police.”
The seven-billion-euro (9.5-billion-dollar) Stuttgart 21 project aims to make the city and the surrounding region part of a 1,500-kilometre (930-mile), high-speed rail route across the continent.
Opponents say most people are against the project, that it will go massively over budget and will ultimately fail to speed up rail traffic. They say that the money would be better spent on other parts of Germany’s rail network.
Locals in the wealthy city of Stuttgart object most of all to parts of their train station, built between the wars by architect Paul Bonatz, being demolished, and to trees, many of which are very old, being cut down.
“This was a brutal day that showed the face of state premier Mappus, his ‘Rambo’ face,” von Herrmann told N24.
Merkel has said that an election in Baden-Wuerttemberg in March, where her conservatives could lose control after half a century in power, is set to be a referendum on the project. One newspaper dubbed it “Merkel 21.”
Merkel, a year into a rocky second term, has thrown her weight behind the plan, and her spokesman Steffen Seibert called on Friday on opponents and supporters to return to the negotiating table after a recent breakdown.
“There is strong government support for this Stuttgart 21 project, which has been talked about well over a decade and which years ago went through all the democratic processes,” Seibert told reporters.
Demonstrators “have the right to protest, but not the right to prevent a democratic decision being implemented.”
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