
Hamburg Girds for Large G-20 Protests - Tomte
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/welcome-to-hell-hamburg-girds-for-large-g-20-protests-a-1152949.html
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mschuster91
I'll be in the hood for the protests, so if anyone is interested in a HN
meetup... mail's in profile.

The protests themselves... I'm not sure what to expect. The German radical
left is waaaay more peaceful than in the past, and the numbers have shrunk,
plus the usual leftie infighting (militance debate, the old Israel question to
name the core differences), so I think the German protests will be mostly a
couple ten thousand people marching, with the occasional thrown bottle or
stone plus a huge load of marijuana smoking (at least it was this during the
OSZE summit in late 2016).

What I can't estimate at all is the role the anarchists from Italy, Greece and
France will be - they're really militant, and for the young ones, they don't
have anything to lose and therefore are willing to risk much more, including a
couple years in jail, for protesting against those who put them into their
position.

What I'm also not sure is what the cops will do. There will be the usual
battalion of "chilled cops" (Bereitschaftspolizei) who will do the major parts
of policing, but fuck I'm scared of our riot cops (BFE/USK). Had my fair share
of run-ins with them, and there are a LOT of them who enjoy punching and
peppering left-wing demonstrators.

As a side note, if anyone not from Germany is planning to attend: avoid being
near any cop with "BFE" or "USK" written on the front label or on the
shoulder/arm label. They're dangerous, and even more so when they feel they've
lost control. Also, there will be a huge presence of horseback police and dog
units, stay away as far as possible from these. Especially horseback police
are known to _literally ride into assemblies of people_.

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Tomte
"Interior Senator Grote has already warned protesters against seeking to try
and block Trump's motorcade, saying nobody knows how the American Secret
Service might react."

Well, I suppose if Americans even think about going wild-west and shooting up
people here, our police had better be prepared to shoot at the Secret Service.

Alternatively, the Americans could let our police in on their contingency
plans, so that mutually acceptable reactions to different scenarios can be
developed.

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tomjen3
Does Germany have a concept of self-defence/defence of others as a legal
right? Frankly if somebody were forcibly trying to stop my car, I would assume
hostile intend and I think most people would.

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jlg23
Rough summary of German laws:

You have a right to defend yourself with the minimal force necessary to
counter a threat to your safety. What a threat is and what "minimal force" is
depends on the knowledge of a defendant: If you know martial arts or medicine
you are held accountable for the results of your "self defense" according to
much stricter standards than somebody who does not. Same for the evaluation of
a threat: If you are trained in threat evaluation, you are expected to be much
more level-headed in dangerous situations.

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majewsky
Good luck getting a fair trial though when your account stands against the
account of a dozen police officers.

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Teever
There will be many cameras at this event.

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majewsky
German police cameras have an honored tradition of always facing away at the
exact moment when police violence happens, like at the 2009 "Freedom not Fear"
protest in Berlin.

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freifunk123
not mentioned in this article: there will be a huge camp in the Stadtpark (now
permitted by court verdict) and lots of events/concerts in the local clubs and
on the streets

violence from protesters and the police - quite likely, but no reason to get
scared, just keep your eyes open. meet interesting people from all over europe
instead and protest against the ever increasing stupidity & brutality of the
worlds leaders

lovely time to visit Hamburg!

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vkou
Odd that the leaders of freest countries in the world need to go to such
lengths to protect themselves from the people they ostensibly serve.

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scottLobster
No it isn't. There are always going to be violent nutjobs that want to prove
something by taking out the leader. Doesn't matter how "free" (whatever your
definition of that is) the country is.

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s_kilk
Or there could be legitimate discontent with how horribly things are going.

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Treegarden
Like what? In Germany? Like beeing an economic power house? Or our universal
healthcare? Free Education/Universities? Our extremely low level corruption?
The functioning bureaucracy? Our social net of Hartz4? Or do you mean that the
world leaders talk?? Should Merkel not talk to Putin and Erdogan?

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mschuster91
We in Germany do enjoy a quite nice life, but look over the border (e.g.
Greece, or if that's too far away, Italy) and the situation looks way
different.

Germany has massively risen in power, both political and economical. This is
partially due to political mismanagement/corruption (esp. Eastern Europe), but
a huge part of the growth of Germany results out of the loss that has been
paid in poorer Europe.

And, surprise, both foreign countries and the German left do not like this.

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Ralfp
> This is partially due to political mismanagement/corruption (esp. Eastern
> Europe)

That, and conflict in which aggressor aimed to physically destroy our
population followed by half of century of being colony for USSR also had its
part in our economies. When 90's finally came we had few people that
remembered democracy and even less businesses that could kickstart our
economies, only massive debts inherited from communist goverments.

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failrate
I misread the topic as "Hamburg Grids" and was expecting some kind of
theoretical system for making large protests more efficient or effective or
something.

Which raises the question: what significant study has been done on the most
efficient and effective ways to protest? We are looking for minimum input for
maximal change with built in systems to prevent rioting and protect the
members of the protest from brutality (e.g. Violent counter protests, letting,
etc).

