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THE LOCAL ZEITGEIST

PROTESTS

‘All Berliners should be standing here today’

Plans to tear down part of the Berlin Wall for a luxury apartment building sparked angry demonstrations on Friday to save the city's East Side Gallery. The Local hit the streets to see what people were saying.

Published: 1 March 2013 16:23 CET
'All Berliners should be standing here today'
Photo: Matthew Luxmoore

Around 300 protesters gathered in eastern Berlin close to the Spree River to form a human chain near one of the last remaining segments of the once hated Cold War barrier.

Many Berliners are incensed that part of the East Side Gallery, a 1.3-kilometre stretch of the Wall now covered in murals by artists from around the world, is to be moved for a block of luxury flats near the river. The open air gallery is the second most popular visitor attraction in the German capital after the Brandenburg Gate.

After a few tense hours, the demolition work was called off, for today at least, but the anger is likely to remain. Another demonstration is planned for Sunday morning.

Click here to see what protestors had to say

Interviews conducted by Mithila Borker and Matthew Luxmoore

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PROTESTS

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

The chairwoman of the Police Association West Region has said that police special tactics, known as Särskild polistaktik or SPT, should be available across Sweden, to use in demonstrations similar to those during the Easter weekend.

Published: 24 April 2022 15:56 CEST
Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police. 

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared. 

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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