G8 summit protests continue to grow 07/06/2007 00:00

7 June 2007

Heiligendamm, Germany (dpa) - About 1,000 demonstrators at the summit of key industrialized countries assembled peacefully early Thursday at two points near the 12-kilometre-long fence that surrounds the conference site, police said, after officers used water cannon to break up blockades on the opening day.

At other times overnight, 3,000 protesters held sit-in blockades outside the Group of Eight summit site at the Baltic coastal resort of Heiligendamm, the police said. Many lay in sleeping bags on roads.

On Wednesday, the first day of the summit involving Germany, the United States, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia, the police reported about 140 arrests as well as isolated clashes with demonstrators.

Police said 10,000 protesters assembled Wednesday outside the G8 summit site and blocked several access routes for much of the day as Germany mounted one of the largest police deployments in its history.

In the evening, however, police began clearing the roads, manhandling away sitting protesters, hosing down larger groups with cold water from police trucks and drawing up lines of riot officers wielding plastic clubs and shields.

In a day of manoeuvring and outflanking, protesters ran across fields to evade police roadblocks and defy a court ban on protests near the 2.5-metre-high, welded mesh fence topped with razor wire.

Immediately before the arrival of the heads of state and government, thousands of demonstrators crossed security lines and assembled at the fence. Police used rubber truncheons against the demonstrators and a violent minority of the protestors

DPA

Subject: German news