Wichmannsdorf camp: 'Bike Control'

A caravan carrying equipment and stuff from Wendland to set up the Wichmannsdorf camp was stopped-and-searched by police for about 6 hours yesterday, some 5km before Neubukow. After the 14 trucks refused to be searched without being given a convincing reason, police said they were looking for stolen bikes, so they went through all the bikes the caravan was carrying, which were donated to them, checking their registration numbers. Some 10 old bikes that did not have numbers were confiscated, in addition to another 2 police said were reported stolen at some point in the past.

The 100 or so cops were apparently waiting for the convoy, which consisted of 14 loaded trucks and buses as well as a few smaller cars. After the activists refused to be searched without being given a convincing reason, the cops made a phone call and came back and said they were after stolen bikes. So they took out all the bikes the caravan was carrying, which were donated to them, to check their registration numbers. This, is addition to searching all the vehicles and taking people details, took them some 6 hours, affecting the traffic on the busy road.

Eventually, they found out that some 10 old bikes did not have numbers, so they were confiscated, in addition to another 2 police said were reported as stolen at some point in the past. A woman told the cops that one of the bikes had its number under its kickstand and offered them a key to dismantle it, but they couldn’t be bothered to do that. In fact, a lot of them seemed to be feeling silly for doing all this.

One of the people with the caravan commented: “It’s obvious that they were just using bikes as a pretext to get our names and maybe delay or even prevent us from setting up the camp.”