G-8 opponents take to the streets

Thousands of G-8 opponents staged demonstrations across Germany on May 9, with the protest in Hamburg turning violent. The demos followed police raids on left-wing activists. Berlin hosted the largest demonstration, as some 3,000 people marched in the Kreuzberg neighborhood under the slogan "Against the G-8 and Repression." But while the Berlin protest was free of violence, in Hamburg, hundreds of protesters threw bottles and shot fireworks at police. Eight demonstrators were ultimately arrested as police responded in force, with 1,000 officers and a water cannon. Elsewhere in Germany, smaller groups of protesters took to the streets of Cologne, Leipzig, Göttingen, Hanover and a number of cities and towns in northern Germany near where the G-8 meeting is set to take place. Left-wing groups sharply criticized the raids, with an Attac spokesman calling the raids an "attempt to criminalize the entire spectrum of G-8 opponents." Germany's Green Party chair Claudia Roth likewise condemned the police action and the Left Party accused the government of creating a "climate of escalation."