Burning cars, security barriers and working from home: The summer's G20 summit is already casting its shadow over Hamburg. Police and protesters are preparing for the meeting in their own ways.
Image: DW/A. Drechsel
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Barbed wire has started cropping up and more police officers patrol the streets and important sites around Germany's northern port city of Hamburg. Security has also already increased at the convention center where the G20 summit will take place. Leaders of the world's 20 top economies will convene in Hamburg, along with their staff, security personnel and journalists, in July.
Large demonstrations expected
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of demonstrators are expected to turn up in Germany's second-largest city. Whether it is Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan or political populists, opposition groups said they have plenty of presidents to protest.
"We want to take the city back on these days and make clear that Hamburg does not want this summit," said Nico Berg. He represents a coalition of left-wing groups that view the G20 as a tool for a neoliberal market-driven agenda.
More police are already on the streets and at major Hamburg attractionsImage: DW/A. Drechsel
"We are not protesting as a means of appealing to the G20 to provide us a fair global order," he added. "We have to fight for that ourselves. The G20 is part of the problem."
Berg and his anti-G20 team are set to hold an organization conference with like-minded people from across Europe this weekend.
Fires as a forewarning
The meeting will take place at the St. Pauli soccer team's stadium. The team has long been associated with left-wing activism. It is just minutes away from the convention center hosting the G20. That puts summit-goers not only in the center of the city but also near neighborhoods where protesters have often clashed with police.
Demonstrators descend on G20 foreign ministers’ meeting
Protest groups had promised not to let the two-day meeting in Bonn go undisturbed. They demanded G20 nations withdraw from conflicts in the Middle East and take responsibility for migrants still arriving in Europe.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Kaiser
Demonstration in Bonn
Formed to coordinate an international agenda promoting financial stability, the G20 has steadily moved beyond its role as an economic council, encompassing everything from climate change to anti-corruption. Around 300 demonstrators gathered outside Bonn's contemporary German history museum on Thursday decrying the meeting of G20 nations' foreign ministers as exclusive and under representative.
Image: DW/M. Morris
The G20 is "under representative"
Although the G20 represents 90 percent of global GDP and 65 percent of the global population, organizations including Network of the German Peace Movement, German leftist party Die Linke, the German Communist Party (DKP) and the Bonn Kurdistan Solidarity Committee condemned the group as not working towards international policies that meet the needs of the broader population.
Image: DW/M. Morris
An American debut
Thursday’s meeting was US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s much-anticipated international debut. “I hope global leaders put pressure on the Trump administration and Rex Tillerson,” said Ohio native Leigh Redemer. "He’s already insulted some of our major, longtime allies, meanwhile has refused to criticize other countries like Russia...I think he’s a danger to Americans and to other countries."
Image: DW/M. Morris
Unhappy with America's new reputation
"I’m just not really happy with some of the decisions the government back home is making and I just want to show that not all Americans think that way," said Jeremy, originally from Connecticut. The 36-year-old added he was not confident President Trump has a firm grasp on the complexities of foreign relations and the importance of structures like the European Union and the G20.
Image: DW/M. Morris
Advocating for political prisoners
“Freedom for all political prisoners,” shout members of NAV-DEM, an association of Kurdish clubs in Germany. Alongside other groups, they rallied for G20 nations to demand Turkey release Abdullah Oclan, a Kurdish nationalist leader and one of the founding members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. He has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999 for involvement in the formation of an armed organization.
Image: DW/M. Morris
Concerns over the conflict in Syria
"Say it loud, say it clear: refugees are welcome here,” demonstrators chanted in Bonn. Protestors were critical of G20 nations' involvement in the ongoing Syrian Civil War, demanding Germany decrease military funding, withdraw from NATO and increase resources spent rescuing and housing the migrants still crossing the Mediterranean Sea daily.
Image: DW/M. Morris
Civilian deaths in the Middle East
Demonstrators fall to the ground on the city's Museum Mile. Clutching roses with chalk outlines around their bodies, protestors said they were symbolizing the civilian deaths in conflicts throughout the Middle East, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Image: DW/M. Morris
G20 involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts
Protestors demanded all G20 nations keep out of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. "It’s the G20 states that take action in Syria," said Nils Jansen, a member of the Bonn Youth Movement. "It’s a war of different superpowers - Russia, USA, Germany and NATO - which is brought upon the Syrian people." It is "forcing people to flee, then closing the doors in front of the refugees."
Image: DW/M. Morris
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In March, police cars were set ablaze, including at a central police station and in front of the private residence of Hamburg's mayor. The police are responding with a force of 14,000 for the summit, calling in police from around Germany.
"We are confident that our security personnel have the situation under control," said Jörg Schmoll, the spokesperson for the Hamburg state senate. "It's good if protests remain peaceful."
It is an honor, he said, to have the eyes of the world on Hamburg, watching how the city handles the both the summit and the protests against it.
"My impression is that Hamburg residents are quite relaxed with it," Schmoll added.
Many residents are considering leaving the city during the summit. Beiersdorf, a cosmetics company, has been the first to call on its employees to work from home during the summit, according to local media reports.
"It's a provocation to locate the G20 right in the middle of one of Germany's major cities," said Christoph Bautz, board member of Campact, a citizen's initiative that combines the interests of unions and environmental and human rights organizations.
Not everyone is happy the G20 summit is in the middle of the HamburgImage: DW/A. Drechsel
'Massive acts of disobedience'
The campaign is planning "colorful, forceful and, above all, peaceful protests" during and in advance of the summit. "This way families and older people can also take part," Bautz said. Campact wants to engage G20 participants on the issues of climate change, trade and social welfare.
Berg said the protests have another aim: Get in the way of world leaders.
"Blockage is the only word the Trumps and Erdogans will understand," he said. "We are calling for massive acts of disobedience. The police are not our enemy, but we will be where they don't want us to be."
