Hundreds arrested in a mass kettle of march closing action camp against the arms industry
~ Gabriel Fonten ~
Police in Cologne, Germany used heavy handed tactics on Saturday (30 August) against a peaceful mass march concluding an anti-militarist camp in the city. The 3,000-strong parade had set out from the “Rheinmetall Entwaffen” antimilitarist camp to meet the yearly rally of the Cologne Peace Forum. One participant described the event as “a historic moment when the few hundred, mostly older participants of this rally watched hundreds, mostly younger people from the camp, who had travelled from both near and far”.
Yet the march was not allowed to continue uninterrupted, as marchers were set upon by around 1,600 police in full riot gear, backed by water cannons and armed with pepper spray. The demonstrators quickly reconfigured into a protective block formation (using banners to separate and protect participants from police) taking “3 hours to move one kilometre” under consistent harassment by the police.
After dividing and kettling the parade, around 600 participants were arrested over the next five hours. Medical non-profit “Demosanitäter” reported treating 147 injured participants and at least 216 were treated at the “Rheinmetall Entwaffen” camp.
Justifications for this brutal crackdown were manufactured by both the police and the establishment media, with the Tageschau news program running headlines including “Riots at anti-war demonstration in Cologne”—presenting protesters, rather than the police, as the instigators of violence. In fact, of the 600 people arrested only one was charged with “resisting arrest”.
Cologne police had previously prohibited both the camp and parade citing risks of “radicalisation”, but this was overturned in court. While it stood, the ban seems to have only increased participation with organisers reporting growing mobilisation as well as the creation of an “anarchist neighbourhood” at the camp.