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Emergency services in Leipzig: empty houses, violent demonstrators
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
After a spontaneous demonstration in the Leipzig district of Connewitz escalated on Friday evening, Lord Mayor Burkhard Jung condemned the riots on Saturday.
"You can't create living space by attacking police officers and setting fire to barricades," said the SPD politician on Saturday.
The police had ended two squatting in Leipzig in the run-up to the riots.
As a result, around a hundred people demonstrated on Friday evening, some of them violently, some threw stones at officers and set up burning barricades.
There were also riots in the east of Leipzig on Thursday evening.
Jung warned that the debate about affordable housing in Leipzig suffered a serious setback with the occupations and violent clashes.
In order to resume a dialogue, trust that has been lost must first be regained.
Police collect stones for securing evidence
After the riots, the police began to collect evidence.
Police officers picked up stones that had been thrown at police vehicles.
The stones were packed in plastic bags and taken away for evaluation.
According to police, eight officers were slightly injured during the demonstration.
No further information was available on Saturday morning about the amount of damage.
For some time now, a battle has been raging in Leipzig over dwindling living space.
Current triggers are houses like the one at Ludwigstrasse 71, which was occupied in August after 20 years of vacancy and was vacated by the police on September 2nd.
The housing debate is also raging on the short message service Twitter under the hashtags #Leipzig and #LeipzigBesetzen: "While people are desperately looking for accommodation, squatting is a crime, but not letting it go to waste," writes a supporter of the squatters.
The German Police Union of Thuringia, on the other hand, tweeted: "After the occupation of the occupied house at Ludwigstrasse 71, the left-wing scene went online and threatened, among other things," If you take the houses from us, we will flatten the city. "
The left-wing scene in Leipzig has been fighting against gentrification for years.
Again and again there are violent riots, attacks on the press and street battles.
The smoldering conflict was already spiraling out of control at the beginning of the year.
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