BERLIN — Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Stuttgart in southwestern Germany on Friday chanting “Shame on you,” one day after the police used pepper spray, water cannons and tear gas to disperse crowds that had gathered to save centuries-old trees from being cut down, German news agencies reported.
A confrontation between the police and protesters on Thursday that left about 130 demonstrators injured was the most heated flare-up in a months-old dispute between the government and local residents who oppose plans to build a modern transportation hub, called Stuttgart 21, that will eventually be linked to Europe’s high-speed rail system.
Newspapers across the country on Friday were filled with pictures of German police officers in riot gear and bloodied and wounded demonstrators, young and old. The incident, already a major political embarrassment to Chancellor Angela Merkel, has persuaded the opposition Green Party to call for national protests.
A party leader, Cem Ozdemir, said in a television interview Friday that “these methods aren’t the way we do things in Germany, and we don’t want them.”
Mrs. Merkel has called for calm, while her party, the Christian Democratic Union, has shown it is determined to move ahead with the project regardless of how many people take to the streets of a city best known as the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.
“I would hope that demonstrations like these would pass off peacefully,” Mrs. Merkel told the public broadcaster SWR on Friday. “This must always be tried, and anything that leads to violence must be avoided.”
The city, state and federal governments, along with Deutsche Bahn, the German rail agency, are determined to move ahead with a plan that has been in the works for about 15 years, will cost billions of dollars and take about a decade to complete.
It requires knocking down two wings of the city’s 100-year-old train station, one of the few buildings to survive heavy bombing during World War II, and cutting down about 300 trees, some centuries old.
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Published: October 1, 2010
Around 600 police used water cannon, tear gas, pepper spray and batons in an operation against over 1,000 demonstrators in the southwestern city of Stuttgart on Thursday. The activists had tried to use a sit-down protest to prevent the city's Schlossgarten park from being cleared so that work could begin on felling trees in the park. The trees are being cut down as part of construction work for a new railway station project called Stuttgart 21.
Images of people bleeding from the eye after being hit by water cannon featured on German television and newspapers Friday.
The protest's organizers said in a statement that more than 400 protestors had suffered eye irritation as a result of the police's operation, with some suffering from lacerations or broken noses,
Protestors try to protect themselves against the powerful high-pressure streams of water:
The police operation has been criticized by opposition politicians.
Thursday's protest drew a broad cross-section of residents from Stuttgart, including women, children and school students. Here, a boy defends a tree from getting cut down with a toy water pistol.
The project is controversial partly because of its price tag -- it is slated to cost €4.1 billion ($5.38 billion) -- and because of the trees that will be cut down in the Schlossgarten park.
Peter Hauk, floor leader for the conservative CDU in the Baden-Württemberg state assembly, turned the accusation on its head. "I think it's irresponsible of mothers and fathers that they not only take their children with them, but also put them in the front row," he said.
In the early hours of Friday, workers began cutting down the first of 300 trees that must be cleared to make way for for the rail project.
The felling of the first trees on Friday morning was accompanied by loud but peaceful protests from the large crowds of demonstrators.
In the end, the city continued to cut trees down so that the construction project can begin.
Spiegel online
