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I have lived in or around Stuttgart for half of my life. It is unbelievable that the police uses brutal violence against peaceful protesters, among them school children and seniors.
Sandra and Woo by Oliver Knörzer is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. See the About page for details.
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I believe all readers share your concern, but we (I personally – at least!) would be really grateful if you do not post shocking images along with a completely positive webcomic… I feel a bit disturbed when I see such things late at night:(
I disagree, sometimes we need a little wake up call. And while there may not be any graphic imagery in this comic, the topics covered are certainly not childish. I for one believe that if you are still more shocked by the blood in this picture than the story behind it, you are probably not the kind of person who really “shares your concern.”
Oh well-done Germany, well-done. Way not to remind world of the past events.
Well, that’s a bit unfair. Both Europe and Americas have long since had fascist propensities along the lines of goddamn police and cameras everywhere.
I don’t mind that you put images like this up. But I would appreciate more detail in my email updates, as in: If you don’t want to read anything non-comic related, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.
Also, some context for the picture should be added. I get that democracy is bs. Congrats to the WORLD for finally figuring it out. I’m sure I could find some pretty awful pictures in other “democratic” countries. Pictures are powerful for communicating emotion, but they’re often like statistics – meaningless without background info…
@ Lishtenbird:
@ incibiden:
I think I have found a good compromise.
Maya wrote:
The e-mail newsletter, just like the RSS feed, is automatically generated. I can’t alter its content even if I wanted to.
Are those his eyes?
Losers, you wouldn’t mind poor squirrel eaten alive many times but you faint just to see one man with scars of (hopefully) honor.
Anyway: who won this battle and what was it all about? I could google, but I prefer a first-hand story.
@ Aines:
i must agree with you i’m in Canada and rally i’ve been listening to the news every day and heard nothing about this what is the cause and what did the protesters do or were doing to deserve this
@ Maya:
it’s not that democracy is bs, it’s that no one knows (or, perhaps, wants) to truly implement it. there is no country, not even my own (the one that purports to be thew bastion of such) that truly lives to the preceepts of democracy. there will always be a ruling class (dictated these days by how much fundage one can control) as long as there are folks who will subjugate themselvews to it.
p.s.: i apologise for the typos. my fingers aren’t as accurate as they used to be. i sould’ve edited before submitting.
@ Novil:
Thank you! I believe it’s a great compromise.
@ incibiden:
As for sharing concerns… I live in Russia, not in Europe. And things like THAT are far more common here. We, ehr… got used to it here:(
Hi,
I’ve been with Sandra and Woo for a while now. I heard about the protest in Stuttgart, and being from and living in Berlin, I experienced how the police “takes action” this year. I’d say it was not this hard last year. This tear gas of theirs is very effective …
Anyway, what on earth happened to that man? Did he get in the way of the water cannons? Tear gas couldn’t possibly have an effect like that.
@lishtenbird: I see that when you got used to the police fighting their way through a peaceful demonstration, this mere fact might not come as such a surprise. But this started out as peaceful civil protest, which used to be ALWAYS tolerated in Germany; you could at least be sure to get away unharmed.
Protip: If you’re getting beaten up by the government, you’re not being covert enough.
Hey there,
I’d like to translate what I already wrote on the German site:
In Stuttgart government is trying to force a construction project, which is extremely expensive and pretty senseless: Stuttgart21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21)
Interesting is that more than 50% of the cities inhabitants are against this project, only ca. one third welcomes the project that will destroy a part of the “Schlossgarten”, a big park near main station, and also will kill around 200 trees. Some of them 200 years old.
Of course there is resistance, in that case even from broad parts of civil population. There were students/school kids demonstrations, also old people protesting against the project. Not only, as often seen, just the standard left wing activists.
And this protests were forced down brutally by the police last days. Even minors and old folks were heavily injured as for example this man who lost an eye thanks to the water cannons of the police. Furthermore yesterday it was claimed the first killed person by heart attack during the police “operation”.
Nevertheless the struggle will go on.
I for myself will get there tomorrow or Monday, as fast as possible.
For the questions/comments:
*Media did not react on this fast and also with many disinformation (it happens more often as one might think) – ntv e.g. broadcasted that demonstrators were throwing big stones and bottles at the police – which was demented one day later.
*what did they do to deserve this: The protesters decided to use their right to show the government that they don’t do what they should: Listen to them.
It’s even positioned in the Germanys constitution that you are allowed to do that. (Artikel 20 Absatz 4 – Deutsches Grundgesetz)
They got what everyone gets who wants to disobey – they got hurt.
* “But this started out as peaceful civil protest, which used to be ALWAYS tolerated in Germany; you could at least be sure to get away unharmed.” – I wouldn’t agree, I took part in many civil and peaceful protests and got beaten up several times etc. – it depends mostly on the medial perception of the topic whether you get hard repression or not.
*To the topic “democracy equal bs” – I wouldn’t say so; I am an anarchist though. Democracy might work socially and fulfilling if it, as firedome mentioned, would be used in its purest idea – basic democracy. Which is nearly anarchism as I understand it, just that we try to find a solution everyone can accept – consent except for compromise. (Pardon the propaganda ^^)
So far, I saw only one person ask what happened, and only one had looked up what happened. Others were quick to place the blame on the police. Here’s the other side of the story: Protesters in Germany are supposed to request a permit to protest. These permits are rarely denied. However, when the permit is received, the protest groups are informed as to where the protest area is. If the protesters decide to protest out of the protest area, the police warn the protesters to leave or return to the protest area. If the protesters don’t leave or if the protesters provoke the police, the water cannons are usually used. So this leaves us with a question; What did the protesters do to get hammered by the police?
This is not a problem only in Germany. Protesters in Iran and other countries receive even worse treatment and do I have to bring up the Anti-war protests in this country that have met similar or worse fates (Kent State ring a bell?). In any country where peaceful protests are met with violence it shows a complete disregard for the rights of others. Police are supposed to protect us not bully us. Provoke them? Part of their mandate is to be impartial not to take sides. They couldn’t just allow the protest to happen and die down when they got cold and tired? This has all the earmarks of money and power showing it’s hand and saying we don’t care what you think.
Allen:
However, they had hundreds of policemen there. Even if the people strayed from the assigned area or were being uncooperative, you could still just sort of ‘forced-move’ said unruly ones away.
There is no reason for policemen to appear anonymized in full riot-gear, downright attack everything that even gets close to them with tear gas, water cannons or just outright beatings, causing a three digit number of protestants to require medical attention afterwards. Part of the attacked protestants were a registered student protest, with young kids and teachers there. There were old people there. No sane mind would think opening the water cannons on those people’s faces should be necessary to prevent people from “protesting outside the assigned area” when you had hundreds of policemen there.
What’s also appaling is the behavior of the politicians and police higher-ups afterwards. First you get claims that protesters threw bricks on the evening news. Then that statement gets quietly redacted later after the evening broadcast is done, because it was untrue. Politicians claiming that the excessive violence from the side of the police is completely justified. The chairman of the police union stating that “People are acting as if policemen used water cannons and tear gas against the protestants” as if that didn’t happen, on the day after the guy in the image above got his eye shot out by one of said water cannons. You have them claiming that they don’t use water cannons against protestants that are sitting in the trees, because they could get serious injuries from falling. Then you get this video http://www.vimeo.com/15484024 of them sweeping trees with protestants in them with said water cannons. That the Police is putting up massive walls and that the deconstruction of the old building is proceeding despite the Federal Railway Authority vetoing the construction project as it is planned now days ago.
Not to even speak of what sort of corrupt clusterfuck of a pointless multi-billion euro sink the entire project is to begin with.
It’s a pretty big mess I can’t even touch on in the scope of this comment. If you’re at all interested in what is happening here, I strongly urge you to inform yourself about this online, at least if you are German and/or can speak German.
Er. Protesters, not protestants.. I didn’t mean those church-ey people. Teaches me I need to doublecheck what I write more thoroughly, especially when it’s past midnight. =/
Tanks for all the info. Reminds me of a quotation:
“Democracy? Very good idea, indeed. Someone should make it happen.”
I wish you a good luck with your fight. Better than this one I watched until the bitter end ;(
http://www.leicestercivicsociety.org.uk/campaign-signatures.asp?item=23
wtf! that’s terrible.
mind you, though the momentary attack is worse, he’s gotten off lighter than the guy who died after being thrown to the ground by police in london.
this partly overblown terrorist fever is making our law enforcers a bit too edgy, jumpy, and overbearing with a non-too-liberal interpretation of said laws. though maybe that’s the idea…
Before all this violence, the poll numbers in the state of Baden-Württemberg had already changed: the current conservative-libertarian government is now behind the opposition of social democrats and greens:
CDU 35% + FDP 5% = 40%
Greens 27% + SPD 21% = 48%
Left Party 5%
That’s right, the poll says in six months, when there is the state election, the new prime minister could be a Green (the Greens had been against S21 first, the SPD was originally for it).
That may be the true cause behind the escalation now, that the state government panicked, wanted to show the demonstrants were intolerable chaots and ordered a tough stance… well, and that backfired horribly.
So let me get this straight: travelling by train is by far the most energy efficient way to travel. Many people want their governments to do something to lower CO2 emissions. But I see that they will not sacrifice anything for the cause, not even to get intracontinental railways a boost so that air travel can be reduced. Nice. So happy I’m not worrying about this because NIMBYism is going to kill any project anyone can come up with.
I believe the point is that it doesn’t really reduce CO2 emissions etc. while costing a lot of money (and destroying the park)… a bit like the CCS project we have at my place.
@Ambi
How’s the (extreme) right wing doing in Germany anyway? It was in the news here because our resident idiot decided to speak at it’s foundation…
Extreme right-wing parties in today’s Germany are usually failures. Occasionally, when people forget this, one or the other gets enough votes to get seats in a state legislature, where they then fail to work on anything productive and instead just hold propaganda speeches. At the next state election they usually fail to get seats again, and sometimes the group falls apart long before due to infighting.
I think voters who would vote for an actually competent right-wing party now mostly vote CDU (which is the most conservative party in parliament as well as the largest one), but many of them also vote SPD or the Left Party (if they rank job creation and support higher than traditional conservative positions).
Post-post-postscriptum:
The whole station controversy went into mediation. Mediator was Heiner Geißler, former general secretary of the ruling CDU and also a member of ATTAC. Things went a bit quieter, although neither the building activities nor the protests were fully stopped. The final result of the mediation was that the underground station could be built if the deficiencies were cured, so property speculation was to be prevented and the claim that the underground station could handle the traffic capacity as planned should be checked again.
State prime minister Mappus was so happy that he decided the state buying shares of EnBW (one of Germany’s big 4 energy giants) back from french EdF, with the deal being handled on the bank’s side by a personal friend, and the legislature only finding out afterwards. Also, the deal will probably be 25% more expensive than Mappus claimed. The public already jokes that he’ll at least have a safe job around there when the voters kick him out…
As for the political mood, it shifted a bit towards the Greens. 7 of Germany’s 16 state vote for their state legislature next year, here are polls:
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/index.htm