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G8: German police ram Greenpeace protest boats

by Kaitlin | June 8, 2007 at 08:57 am

1670 views | 20 Recommendations | 5 comments

A boat filled with Greenpeace protesters trying to deliver a petition to G8 summit leaders was "intercepted" by German police boats yesterday. Police have been trying to enforce an exclusion perimeter in the waters surrounding the resort town of Heiligendamm where summit leaders are gathered. Watch the shocking footage of the interception, here (the chase goes on for over 4 minutes on this German newscast; watch the last ten seconds to see the moment in question).

Three protesters have been taken to hospital after two boats were rammed and capsized by German coastguard vessels after they got within a few hundred metres of the shore.

A total of 11 boats, a mixture of high-speed inflatables, catamarans and 6-metre long speed boats, launched a coordinated attempt this morning to breach the 10-nautical-mile exclusion zone in the Baltic sea around Heilgendamm.

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

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babblingdweeb

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:41 on June 8th, 2007

Good stuff...this video is crazy! Tal kabout police protection...damn.

Barry Artiste

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 22:44 on June 8th, 2007

Kaitlin, Great stuff, Wow, a James Bondish style boat chase video, quite the action chase,
excellent coverage. I guess when the German Police yell pull over, you
pull over or else.Greenpeace could have avoided injury if they
would have used the media instead of recklessly engaging in high speed
boat chases endangering their own lives. In ending, good thing no one
was killed.

Radical_Images

at 05:05 on June 10th, 2007

Hey Barry, don't you think people have a democratic right to protest and don't you think the German response was the one putting lives in danger by over reacting to the situation? Greenpeace would certainly prefer to use the media, but the mainstream media publish jack S.... when it comes to protesters points of view at G8 summits and prefer to tow the world leaders line. But hey thats what started open systems like Now Public :)

babblingdweeb

at 09:24 on June 12th, 2007

I think you have a great point -it is a similar argument as the one against police engaging in high-speed chases. The catch here is that (I cannot believe I would say this) the G8 summit could be a terrorist target, so is it possible that someone could dress up as Greenpeace when they really aren't? Sure. I don't think that justifies the force being used, but when you tread into a safety zone, you never know what might happen.

I have to agree with you on the notion of MsM, why they don't cover protests or the message (or they cover it very little) disturbs me. I can sympathize with topics that might be "conspiracy theory", but a lot of the stuff on G8 is far from. Thankfully there are lots of alternative sources for news!

Radical_Images

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:40 on June 10th, 2007

Kaitlin, Good stuff.

This is something I had missed in the mainstream media and shows me how valuable crowd sourced media can be

Many Thanks

Radical