With a power cutter and ram: In Berlin, the police have forcibly gained access to a house occupied by left-wing autonomists.
Berlin - Large police operation on Thursday in Berlin - with heavy equipment.
The police have forcibly gained access to the occupied building "Rigaer 94" in Berlin-Friedrichshain, the reason was a fire protection test.
The house was partly barricaded.
The residents attacked the police officers with powder from a fire extinguisher and threw paint on them - several emergency services were injured.
Previously, negotiations between the district and the residents had failed, according to the police.
The SPD interior ministers condemned the attacks at the interior ministers' conference.
The ministers and senators from Bremen, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia and Lower Saxony stood alongside the Berlin Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel, and the local emergency services.
“That is unbearable and cannot be justified by anything.
This is raw, extreme violence against our police and fire brigade, ”said their spokesman, Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius.
Dispute over Rigaer Strasse 94 in Berlin: More than 1000 police officers on duty
The expert who is supposed to carry out the fire protection test was not in the building complex consisting of the front building, side wing and rear building by noon.
Parts of the building were barricaded on Wednesday.
The residents only wanted to allow the fire protection expert access alone, without police protection.
However, according to the police, he refused.
It was unclear when he could start his work.
According to their own statements, the police are deployed with a total of more than 1,000 personnel.
Roads are largely blocked.
In the vicinity of the "Rigaer 94" school and daycare center were closed on Thursday, as was the district office.
Residents announced resistance to the action via loudspeaker.
Rockets were detonated above the house and firecrackers could be heard.
Shortly before noon, the residents tweeted: "The police are in the house."
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Police officers try to get into the house in Rigaer Strasse 94 in Berlin-Friedrichshain.
© JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
On the Wednesday before the planned fire protection test, masked people attacked the police.
The police reported that stones were thrown at them.
Barricades were burning on Rigaer Strasse.
More than 70 officers were injured, according to police.
Berlin: Police open the house entrance of the "Rigaer 94" with a chainsaw
On Thursday morning, police officers broke open an outer door at “Rigaer 94” with ram, cut-off machine and chainsaw, as a
dpa
reporter reported. After smoke development, presumably due to sprayed fire extinguishing agents, several police officers complained of irritation to the airways, as the police tweeted. Some emergency services wore gas masks. A second door took the police longer to open. They then gained access through the courtyard of a neighboring house. According to initial information from the police, 8 police officers were injured by fire extinguishing powder, and another 13 suffered a blast trauma.
There have been conflicts over Rigaer Straße 94 for a long time. The building is one of the last partially occupied buildings in the capital and is also a symbol of the left-wing extremist scene.
The residents and their supporters had long announced resistance to the inspection and repeatedly threatened with violence.
In the building complex of three houses with 30 apartments, numerous deficiencies in fire protection were documented years ago: missing escape routes, wall openings, faulty electrical cables and barriers in stairwells.
There are rental agreements for many apartments.
But it is unclear who lives there.
(dpa / frs)
List of rubric lists: © JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
