Germany: Police and Security Clear Barricades in Hambach Forest

28 April 2015: At around 11 o’clock, police, RWE and secu­ri­ties appeared at the occu­pa­tions in the Ham­bach For­est. They cut sev­er­al climb­ing ropes, imposed dis­missals and sur­round­ed the liv­ing bar­ri­cade.
This is not the first time climb­ing ropes where cut as a sab­o­tage. This is a life threat­en­ing and use­less action on behalf of the police and RWE.
This hap­pens after the ‚dia­log‘ in the state par­lia­ment in Düs­sel­dorf with the police, the min­istry of inter­nal affairs, the par­ties, RWE and the region­al ini­tia­tive on the 20th of April this year. After the annu­al gen­er­al assem­bly of RWE last week and the human chain in Garzweil­er last week­end.
This is sup­posed to be the ener­gy tran­si­tion and the dia­log that is held. The inter­est of econ­o­my and those who are payed by them are in the fore­ground. On the 21th of may, the admin­is­tra­tive court in Aachen will decide if the mead­ow occu­pa­tion could be imme­di­ate­ly evict­ed. This is a call­out to all peo­ple who want to resist against the destruc­tion of land­scape.
Pics of the action [here]

News

06:28 am
Night is pass­ing and a new day is ris­ing… at the moment one per­son is in front of the police sta­tion, with ban­ners and infor­ma­tion. The police told to reg­is­ter a pick­et(?). If not the ban­ners should be removed. the out­come remains open…

05:50 am
Dur­ing the night, the per­sons in front of the police sta­tion was switched. It remains calm with no rain. Come around and bring break­fast. Hof cof­fee and tee are wel­come.

02:37 am
A sign of life from the cel­lars of the courts of this city. The press and a per­son in front of the police sta­tion are deter­mined to stay until our friend is released. In front of the police sta­tion, a gui­tar is play­ing and from the cel­lars one can hear the Anti RWE song from Mona&Hummel. You can lis­ten to it here: http://monaundhummel.noblogs.org/musik/

01:28 am
Blan­kets, Matrass­es and rice to eat have been brought. Here you can find a film doc­u­ment­ing the assaults of the RWE secu­ri­ty against activists. They are appar­ent­ly talk­ing about the sup­posed dig­ger occu­pa­tion of 06.04.2015.

01:20 am
Greet­ings from the police sta­tion in Kalk, we are prepar­ing for a long night.

00:05 am
Sev­er­al peo­ple are at the police sta­tion in Cologne/Kalk, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with our arrest­ed friend. She is hap­py about sup­port, as well as blan­kets, hot tee and cups. The hot choco­late is almost gone! Come around!

23:30 pm
We are online again and have installed a press loca­tion and an EA in Cologne. If you want to know more about the course of events around our arrest­ed frend. This num­ber is reach­able around the clock: 0049 15753511306

18:oo pm
We just received the sad mes­sage that a friend of ours, who has pre­vi­ous­ly been held cap­tured in Hürth, has now been trans­fered to the prison n Cologne/Kalk. A release is not in sight. As she has been locked on, they charge her pf ‚resis­tance against execu­to­ry officers‘We send you pow­er and strenght… . The police oper­a­tion was com­mis­sioned by the region­al for­est depart­ment Rhein Erft. One of the many insti­tu­tions which are close­ly relat­ed to RWE and who sup­port the deple­tion of the Ham­bach For­est, as has been shown in the last years dur­ing sim­i­lar oper­a­tions.

16:31 pm
The police retreat­ed from the for­est. Appar­ent­ly the oper­a­tion was enforced by the for­est depart­ment of NRW.

15:30 pm
Heavy machin­ery of RWE is still on it’s way through the for­est and on the for­mer high­way A4, clear­ing the bar­ri­cades. The first sup­port­ers are arriv­ing in front of the police sta­tion in Hürth.

14 pm
More police cars/trucks arrive and dri­ve towards the for­est occu­pa­tions.

13:50 pm
RWE evict­ed the Hedge­hog with the help of police, now they cut a swath of destruc­tion through the for­est.

13:30 pm
The police just announced that the per­son locked in the Hedge­hog has been brought tot he police sta­tion in Bergheim, accom­pa­nied by a medic.

12:50 pm
The per­son in the Hedge­hog is evict­ed. They will start with the destruc­tion of the habi­tat.

12:30 pm
The sit­u­a­tion around the Hedge­hog is tense. There, RWE secu­ri­ty and diverse police depart­ments have sur­round­ed the place and plan to destroy the bar­ri­cades in the for­est and evict and destroy the Hedge­hog (a big, liv­ing bar­ri­cade). On per­son locked them­selves in the Hedge­hog to stop fur­ther use­less destruc­tion of nature with their own body.
The Hedge­hog is locat­ed at the for­mer meet­ing point in the for­est, where some RWE secu­ri­ties stole a stat­ue of Christ a few months ago.
Apart from this, the helpers of nature destruc­tion have left the mead­ow, Oak­town and Beech­town for now. Arrest­ed peo­ple are set free, noth­ing else is known so far.

12 pm
Peo­ple are arrest­ed in the Ham­bach For­est

11:40 am
Activists are sur­round­ed and dis­missals are imposed

 

Also, support the Hambach Defenders on 16 May:

from Ham­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion
Sup­port the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Mead­ow under legal pres­sure

We at the Ham­bach­er For­est have been resist­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion by the largest coal mine in West­ern Europe for the last three years expe­ri­enc­ing 3 major evic­tions and numer­ous police and secu­ri­ty actions. Now we are fac­ing a new per­il. Our sup­port camp with its veg­an kitchen, the­ater, infos­hop and 2 libraries, numer­ous liv­ing and guest spaces is fac­ing legal pro­ceed­ings in Aachen on the 21st of May with a demon­stra­tion of sup­port on May 16th in Cologne.
The Mead­ow Sup­port Camp has become a can­vas for build­ing with straw­bail, green roofs, renew­able ener­gy and bio­dy­nam­ic farm­ing. It is also a home to many activists includ­ing two fam­i­lies with chil­dren. Sup­port­ing at the same time two for­est occu­pa­tions, direct action cam­paigs and pub­lic events.
We would like to call for inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port in the form of legal assis­tance in Ger­many as well as inter­na­tion­al­ly. Please con­tact the court involved:

Demon­stra­tion on the 16th of May
Against coal min­ing in rheine area
Cologne / Ehren­feld 14 o‘clock

Prozess on the 21st of May
Achen Admin­is­tra­tive Court
Adal­bert­stein­weg 92
im Jus­tizzen­trum
52070 Aachen
fax 0241 9425 83204
tel 0241 9425 0

This is the court that will be attempt­ing to use build­ing code reg­u­la­tions to destroy struc­tures in the Mead­ow Sup­port Camp. It is the same reg­u­la­tions that are reg­u­lar­ly used against earth­ship, straw bail and oth­er infor­mal archi­tec­ture and spaces in favor of resource extrac­tion rich(wasteful and destruc­tive) habi­tats and inter­ests.