24hoursworld

Allegations of violence: Lützerath: NRW interior minister defends police operation

Allegations of violence: Lützerath: NRW interior minister defends police operation

After the clashes on the fringes of the large demonstration against the evacuation of Lützerath, there was a dispute about the evaluation of the police operation. RWE announces a schedule for dredging the village area.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of the Interior, Herbert Reul (CDU), defended the police against allegations of disproportionate use of force during the anti-coal demonstration near Lützerath on Saturday. The police worked “highly professionally”, said Reul on Sunday evening on the ARD talk show “Anne Will”.

He will have any case of inappropriate police violence investigated. “We’ve seen one or two films online where we say: ‘That doesn’t look good.’ We’ll take a close look at that, and we’ve also filed a criminal complaint just to be on the safe side, because I think it needs to be checked. I did always done in the last few years, and that’s how it’s done now.”

Any improper use should be investigated

But it’s not as if there were masses of “crazed police officers” at the demo. He would have wished the organizers of the demo to clearly distance themselves from violence, but that didn’t happen.

Climate activist Luisa Neubauer contradicted this and accused the police of a disproportionately violent operation on the show. “It didn’t look professional in any way,” she said. Neubauer pointed out that according to a paramedic for the demonstrators, many people had been seriously injured by the police. The protest against it was peaceful. The demonstration was directed against the demolition of the village of Lützerath west of Cologne and the excavation of the coal underneath.

Water cannon, batons, pepper spray

According to the police, around 1,000 mostly masked “disturbers” tried to penetrate the cordoned-off area of ​​Lützerath on the fringes of the large demo. The police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray against them. Twelve people were arrested or taken into custody. According to the police, nine activists were taken to the hospital by ambulance. A spokeswoman for the demonstrators’ medical service had said that a “high two-digit to three-digit number” of participants had been injured.

According to the police union (GdP), the evacuation went largely as expected. However, the weather conditions with constant rain and deep morass made the operation more difficult, said Andreas Roßkopf, chairman of the GdP district of the Federal Police, the German Press Agency. He found it incomprehensible that peaceful participants had not managed to “distance themselves from the violent participants”. This made it difficult for the police officers to “intervene appropriately”. Overall, the emergency services acted with prudence and “the necessary sense of proportion”.

Eviction is complete

On Sunday, the police completed the evacuation of the protest village of Lützerath at the Rhenish opencast lignite mine, except for two activists in a tunnel. “There are no other activists in the Lützerath area,” the police said. Most of the buildings had already been demolished on Sunday – including the farm of the last farmer from Lützerath. According to RWE on Sunday, it was still unclear when the two activists in the tunnel could be brought out. The plant fire brigade took over the action known as “rescue”.

The police announced in the evening that a total of 35 “tree structures” and almost 30 wooden structures in Lützerath had also been cleared. Almost 300 people were taken away from Lützerath, which resulted in four acts of resistance. Since the eviction began, 154 investigations have been initiated. More than 70 police officers have been injured since the evacuation operation began. However, a spokesman said on Sunday that the injuries were only partly due to violence by demonstrators.

RWE announces schedule

RWE assumes that the demolition of Lützerath will be completed soon. It is expected that the dismantling will take eight to ten days, said a spokesman for the “Rheinische Post” (Monday). “In March or April, the mine could then reach the former village and excavate.” The police want to remain on site until the end of the dismantling.

Source: Stern

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts