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‘Accused Instagram girl is innocent, it was me’

The 17-year-old girl questioned by police in connection to the Gothenburg Instagram 'slut shaming' riot is innocent, says another Instagram user who claims to be behind the account that sparked such uproar on Tuesday.

Published: 21 December 2012 07:27 CET
'Accused Instagram girl is innocent, it was me'

The tabloid Aftonbladet managed to get in touch with the teenager on the messaging site Kik. The teen then gave the paper the password to the original Instagram account to verify his or her identity.

“I have thought about going to the police several times,” said the teen, who claimed to be between 15 and 18 years of age.

“But it would be like committing suicide, I’ll be killed. I’m not afraid of the police, I’m afraid of other people.”

The teen claims to have started the account which called for images and information on ‘sluts in Gothenburg’ for fun and was taken by surprise by the shockwaves it set off.

The account owner said that the 17-year-old girl who was whisked away to safety by her teachers when she was accused of setting up the Instagram account is completely innocent.

“I feel really sorry for her and her family. They don’t deserve this,” the teen told Aftonbladet.

More than 150 teens gathered outside the accused 17-year-old’s school on Tuesday, reportely after calls on a Facebook page to beat her up in retaliation.

The part lynch mob, part voyeuristic tag-along gathering descended into violence as a few members of the crowd threw bottles and stones at the police.

Tuesday’s events led to the police apprehending 27 people, while unrest spilling into Wednesday saw one person arrested.

On Thursday afternoon, the Swedish youth organization “Refuse to be called a whore” assembled a peaceful protest of about 100 people in Gothenburg.

They demonstrated against the raw, sexual tone of bullying on the internet.

“We thought it was time for a constructive demonstration instead of hunting down social media users who have spread ugly and disgusting rumours,” protester Dana, 28, told the TT news agency.

“Net bullying has escalated and reached the streets. We could have prevented this in Gothenburg but we adults didn’t act soon enough.”

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RIOT

Dozens of police injured during riots at Berlin’s last hold-out squat

Sixty police officers were injured in riots that erupted Wednesday at one of Berlin's last squats ahead of disputed fire protection checks on the building.

Published: 17 June 2021 09:31 CEST
Dozens of police injured during riots at Berlin's last hold-out squat
Burning barricades in the Rigaer St. on June 16th. Photo: dpa | Andreas Rabenstein

Its facade covered in murals and anti-capitalist graffiti, the occupied building at 94 Rigaer Strasse is among the squats that mushroomed across the city after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Numerous attempts have been made in recent years to clear the squat, but each time they have ended in violence.

Ahead of Thursday’s planned fire protection inspection, police had declared the zone a restricted area and banned all demonstrations in the environs.

But as officers arrived on the scene to secure the area, they were met with a hail of stones flung from roofs and the street.

Firecrackers were also hurled from windows and barricades set up by far-left activists were set on fire.

Police said officers were attacked by “around 200 people from the street and from the roof with stones”.

“Material was brought on the street and set on fire,” they added on Twitter.

As water cannons were brought in to put out the fires, officers partially withdrew from the scene.

But they later returned, backed by climbing experts, who were helping them get on the roof of the building to remove stones placed there by residents, added police.

Officials have planned a heavy deployment lasting into Thursday.

Berlin’s interior minister Andreas Geisel vowed a tough crackdown on the militants, saying there can be no special treatment or a “law for Rigaer Strasse”.

Rigaer 94 has been branded by Germany’s domestic security service as the centre of Berlin’s anarchist scene.

While some want to see the counter-culture bastion wiped off the capital’s map, others have defended it as a vestige of an old Berlin rapidly disappearing as property prices and rents rise sharply.

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