World G8 Germany 2007 Newswire Archive

A text written in the hope of an empowering self-critical debate in autonomous and anarchist circles about what happened and what didn´t happen during the protests against the g8...
one swallow doesn´t make a summer

This an approach of an incomplete reconstruction. Please help to verify the events due to place and time. We are happy for any feedback, comments or corrections! So, we cannot give any garanty for the correctness of the mentioned facts.

Sources: Camp AG, Streetmedics, Infopoints, Indymedia Ticker, lawyers, police, eye-witnesses, press, pressgroups, Linkspartei Bad Doberan, Committee for Basic Rights and Democracy, own reports etc.

Translation: Media G8way International Pressgroup

[Gipfelsoli Infogruppe]

Update: June 15th 2007
under permanent construction

Good article from dutch media activist on the 'media battle', the press centre village and the media intervention made by some clowns at Kühlungsborn:

Below are a few examples of the lies and propaganda spun by the police during the G8 protests in Germany, as well as direct evidence that the police were at times using infiltrators to try and create conditions to justify further repression.

There are for sure many more examples of this during the last two weeks or so and civil liberties monitoring groups are investigating other incidents. It should also be said that while the media were able to report what appeared to be a tolerant attitude to the blockades at the East Gate, in other places sit down protestors were water cannoned, pepper sprayed and beaten. Also the police tried to provoke violence at various different protests and actions, arrested people for nothing more than having the wrong clothing on them, and failed to give medical assistance to injured people in a number of incidents. Police have also been criticised for using water canon at close quarters against peaceful blockaders resulting in several serious eye injuries, including a man from Liverpool who has lost the use of his eye after it was dislodged. Further criticism has come regarding the use of the military against protestors including the army on the A19 autobahn and the use of Panavia Tornado jets in low fly reconnaissance / intimidation runs over protest camp sites.

Other tactics used by the police included mass unrpovoked arrests, closure of transport systems to prevent people reaching legal assembly points and systematic feeding of misinformation to the media - details of which below:

Last night on newsnight Peter Oborne, a Daily Mail political columist said "It's the job of the press to bring to light falshoods". It's a shame the idea wasn't applied to the article below.

Published in print and on the web, it deals with the blockade protests against the G8 held on Wednesday 6th June. I saw a copy of it last night and was astounded at the shoddy quality of the journalism. I find it hard to believe that someone was actualy paid to produce such a mixed up shambles of misinformation and mistake.

It contains around 13 serious factual errors. This is a shocking number of mistakes for any article.

The Daily Mail does not have a good record when it comes to accuracy and G8 protests. This article confirms that their reporting should not be believed. Over 2.3 Million people read the Daily Mail...

In English only, for German and English please listen to:
 http://www.freie-radios.net/portal/content.php?id=17619

G82007 Heiligendamm

What's hot and not

Video Rushes of the G8 Prisoner Solidarity March

From the streets, blockades and bars- the self- elected unrepresentative group of 8 that make up the whats hot team have this report.

During the recent weeks and months a spirited debate developed in different German left wing newspapers and groups about the sense or non-sense, the perspectives and the means and goals of the mobilisation against the G8 summit. Different German and Austrian anti-fascist groups started a campaign to criticise a wrong analysis of capitalism widely spread in the anti-globalisation movement. In the context of this campaign several public discussions and lectures were held, a special webpage was set up but above all reader was published that contains a set of basic texts referring to this problem. This reader is available in German and English and will soon also be published in French in order to spread the debate also across other countries. Check it out: www.no-liberation-reader.tk

Conflict over global warming took centre stage at the G8 summit with the European countries Britain, France and Germany taking the moral high ground in pressuring the United States to make a commitment to cuts in emissions.

On Friday samba bands and protestors shut down the Shell garage in Evershagen, Rostock.

Somebody came up to us in the imc and asked us to put up her pics on indymedia - here they finally are.

On Friday the blockades ended and a few thousand people assembled at Rostock train station for a march down to the harbour. Many were returning from spending the night camped out around Heiligendam. It was unbelievably hot and the occasion had a party atmosphere. The activists had good reason to be pleased with themselves. For a whole week the German state had been defied and the G8 had suffered one publicity disaster after another.

Late report due to restricted net access at the beginning of the week.

The blockade was originally planned for Wednesday. Then it come to light that Mr Bush will by flying in a day early so plans are hastily rearranged. Laage is a military airport and it the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival cops stop the coach and we are told that all demos are banned around the airport for the duration of the G8. However the Police have made an exception as there are thousands of people converging on the area so they offer to escort us to the designated protest area. How considerate of them…

The following article -- published in the June edition of Red Pepper magazine and written around a month before the G8 Summit -- offers a bit of background to the 2007 G8 mobilisation and the conditions on which it could perhaps be judged a success -- all of which were fulfilled or exceeded last week.

We are winning!

Video rush of the day's activities on Thursday 7 June, 2007.

The 3,500 reporters and photographers who travelled to the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, have accomplished their assigned mission. The world has been inundated with reports of progress and idyllic photos: Bush, Merkel and Putin sitting relaxed and chatting in beach chairs; Sarkozy and Blair talking over a glass of beer; a harmonious walk on the beach of the picturesque resort by all of the world leaders.

During the morning many protesters joined in the last moments of the gate blockades, many later leaving the gates enmass to converge with protesters from both blockades and protest camps at Rostock train station to march to the closing rally at the Rostock harbour.

During the march, their were halts when a soundsystem had to be negotiated into being able to travel with the crowd into the harbour area.

With hundreds of protesters arriving at the harbour rally, speakers began to relay their thoughts of how the actions against the G8 went - the feeling was generally jubilent with some speeches throwing up some interesting facts such as the various propaganda lies pushed by the police and printed in the press.

During the rally a large group spontaneously took to the streets marching down the road towards the prison to show solidarity with all those still detained. As they set off the police scrambled to block in and surround this group for several hours before they dispersed. A number regrouped at the prison and are awaiting more news on those still inside.

On the blockade at the western gate police used nine high-pressure water cannons against protesters. Before they started to attack the protesters, police said to journalists they should leave the place. The brutal attack led to many injured protesters, at least two heavily injured: one lost his eye, another one lost his consciousness. red cross helpers were not allowed to got to the wounded - police declared the wounded should go to the red cross helpers themselves.