Chaotic scenes at anti-Tesla protests in Grünheide: Hundreds of activists try to break into the factory premises, and violence breaks out. Further actions are now planned.
After some violent clashes at the Tesla factory site in Grünheide near Berlin, the police are preparing for further protests today. Friday’s actions will be taken into account in operational planning, said a police spokesman. The activists kept a low profile about planned actions over the weekend. First of all, a protest march is planned around midday from the Fangschleuse train station to the Tesla factory. Further actions by the demonstrators around the Tesla factory are to be expected.
On Friday there were repeated clashes between protest participants and the officers. The police used pepper spray and batons. According to police, several participants in the protests and 21 emergency services were injured. By 7 p.m., 16 people had been taken into custody, it said.
A spokeswoman and a spokesman for various protest groups involved criticized the police’s “disproportionately harsh” approach. This was deployed with a large contingent, including hundreds from several federal states. Water cannons and a clearing tank were also available, but were not initially used.
Try to get into the factory premises
During a demonstration on Friday, several activists tried to enter the Tesla factory site. They overcame a wild fence in the forest on the edge of US entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Tesla factory. According to their own statements, the police prevented them from entering the factory premises. At an airfield in Neuhardenberg, demonstrators made it onto the site, set off pyrotechnics and damaged Tesla vehicles with paint. According to a spokesman, the police tried to protect this area as well. However, the sheer size of the airfield made this difficult.
The starting point of the protests was the protest camp set up near the car factory in Grünheide. Activists have been staying in tree houses there since the end of February to protest against the planned expansion of the Tesla site and the clearing of forest. The police want to ensure that the tree houses are dismantled. A legal dispute is ongoing. Since Wednesday, Tesla opponents have called for days of action against the car manufacturer.
“The fight against this car factory is a fight against every car factory,” said the group involved Disrupt on Friday. “So that the earth remains our home in the long term, we should be brave enough to creatively redesign this plant. We have to decide together whether we build buses, ambulances or cargo bikes here.”
Sit-ins and disruptive actions
The police tried to shield the area of the only Tesla factory in Europe and several motorway exits were closed. The railway line between Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) was also temporarily closed at Fangschleuse station. On the sidelines of the demonstrations to the site, there was also a sit-in on Landstrasse 23 near the plant. In Berlin, activists held a banner reading “Clean cars are a dirty lie” in front of the Mall of Berlin shopping center, which houses a Tesla exhibition store.
“There is nothing wrong with peaceful protest and citizens must be able to express their opinions,” said Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD), explaining the events in Grünheide on Friday. “This is a central part of our democracy,” he said when asked.
Tesla initially did not comment on the course of the protests. There was no production at the plant on Friday. However, this has to do with the bridge day after Ascension Day and not with the demonstrations, emphasized a company spokeswoman.
The US car manufacturer had to stop production in its factory for a few days in March after an arson attack on a power pole. A left-wing extremist group claimed responsibility for the crime. In addition, Teslas parked in various places repeatedly burst into flames.
Source: Stern
