Just two days after a mass anti-G8 demonstration in Rostock turned violent, protestors skirmished with police June 4, this time in a part of town known for neo-Nazi attacks in the early 1990s. Nearly 1,000 staged a sit-down protest in front of the immigration office in Baltic Sea port city to protest the asylum policies of the world's major industrialized countries. Police said the rally turned violent when black-clad anarchist bloc began throwing bottles. Four protesters were detained there for violating a police ban on wearing masks at rallies. However, a photo showed police detaining a protester in a clown outfit armed with a water pistol.
As a sign of tribute, the protesters passed by "Sunflower House," a home for refugees in the Rostock-Lichtenhagen area where neo-Nazis had launched an arson attack and terrorized Vietnamese asylum-seekers in 1992.
The June 4 incident was the second outbreak of violence in Rostock in the run-up to the Group of Eight summit, which begins June 6 in nearby Heiligendamm. In the June 2 street fighting, nearly 1,000 people were injured, including 433 police officers, authorities said. (Deutsche Welle [2], June 6)
See our last posts on Germany [3] and the G8 protests [4].
