Peaceful blockupy protest gets Frankfurt public backing
Blockupy Frankfurt declared a lasting victory for freedom of speech as 25,000 demonstrators marched through the German financial capital tormented by 5000 riot police.
Saturday’s peaceful march on the European Central Bank was the culmination of three days of protest against the new wave of authoritarian capitalism, which has swept Europe.
“The governance of the market is actively seeking the state of crisis, for this is where maximal profit can be found,” said a statement in the Critical Legal Thinking Blockupy live-feed blog.
“This is why today’s protests call for an end to crisis politics – because such policies seek only the perpetuation of crisis, and consequently can only be considered as deleterious to human well-being.”
Even traditionally right-wing newspaper Die Zeit called Saturday’s demo a “victory for Blockupy” despite police descending on the city of Frankfurt in their thousands to intimidate, harass and terrorise anyone who wanted to democratically demonstrate their displeasure with the current political system. A carpet ban on protest meant any assembly was deemed illegal, even when held on private ground, but rather than shy from the streets many braved their fears knowing that in their civil disobedience they stood for something greater: freedom of speech.
And it was not an effort that went unseen as residents threw biscuits, water bottles and sweets to aid the thousands who had evaded police aggression and marched for their dwindling freedoms in the afternoon sun.
It was a victory hard-won though, as hundreds were arrested in one of the largest police operations in recent years that closed down an entire city to traffic with even residents going about their daily business being disrupted and house-arrest conditions being imposed on prominent protestors.
As the police violence escalated and over ten buses were turned back from Berlin, demonstrators turned back at Germany’s borders and the British kettle being used to stifle dissent at every opportunity, so did the legal challenges in the German federal supreme court. Clutching copies of the German constitution, protestors – who received wide support across the German activist scene – called for the interior minister’s head for his role in limiting freedom of thought.
Britain’s own David Graeber, whose compelling book, Debt has already proven a must-read for politically interested people across the globe, was one of the main speakers in a series of workshops held throughout Frankfurt trying to evade State repression.
Activist lawyer Hans Scharf – wearing an Occupy Money t-shirt referring to the Blockupy money system installed at the camp that demoted all nations to BBB speculator status – immediately said: “It is a shame, for this supposedly cosmopolitan city, the way we are treated here.” In his view, the Minister of Interior and the head of the public order department should resign, because they had “absolutely no concrete reason to restrict freedom of assembly”.
The editorial unit
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