2007-05-11
Berlin - Extremists planning to disrupt next month's Group of Eight summit of the world's richest nations could be placed in preventive custody ahead of the meeting, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Friday.
Schaueble said in a series of press interviews that potential troublemakers could be detained for up to two weeks if there are firm indications they are planning criminal actions.
The minister has already announced that Germany was reimposing border checks in efforts to quell violent protests at the June 6-8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
Normally German borders are open and passengers on flights from many European Union countries, the so-called Schengen nations, do not need to show passports. The Interior Ministry said it needed to stop potential offenders, mainly opponents of globalization, from entering Germany to protest at the summit.
Schaeuble said Germany expected an increased security threat during the summit. He said the fact that Germany was not not subject to terrorist attacks during major events such as last year's football World Cup 'does not mean we will be spared this time.'
On Wednesday, police launched a crackdown against left-wing extremists believed intent on disrupting the talks between leaders from Germany, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.
Some 900 officers searched 40 sites in six German states, confiscating computers, data and other documents, but making no arrests.
The raids triggered peaceful protests by anti-globalization activists in several cities, resulting in clashes with police in the northern port of Hamburg.
Prosecutors said militant leftists opposed to globalization had carried out a series of petrol-bomb attacks over the past year on homes and cars of industrialists and officials in Berlin and Hamburg.
German police say they expect 50,000 to 100,000 protesters to gather next month near Heiligendamm. Most of the protesters were expected to peacefully listen to anti-G8 songs at a pop concert.
But police unofficially estimate that 3 to 5 per cent of the protesters do not subscribe to non-violence and might try to evade police roadblocks and fences and invade the summit.
[http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1303038.php/Minister_threatens_to_place_G8_opponents_in_custody]
