Angela Merkel’s nightmare: Chancellor forced to defend G20 in Hamburg marred by riots
ANGELA Merkel has been forced to defend the G20 summit and promise to pay the victims compensation after violence descended on Hamburg.
By KATIE MANSFIELD
Express.co.uk
Sun, Jul 9, 2017
About 20,000 police struggled to contain several hundred anti-capitalist protesters who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails and stones during the July 7-8 summit in Germany. Tens of thousands more people demonstrated peacefully.
476 officers suffered injuries ranging from cuts and firework burns to eye damage from laser pointers. Police said on Sunday they had arrested 186 people and took 225 into custody.
The humiliated German Chancellor has now promised compensation to Hamburg residents whose property was damaged as she attempted to defend her decision to host the summit in the city.
Angela Merkel, who will attempt to hold onto power in the September elections, was forced to defend her choice of Hamburg, saying other cities, like London, had hosted similar meetings.
The German Chancellor had wanted to demonstrate to G20 partners, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, her commitment to freedom of speech and rejected the notion that some cities were out of bounds as summit venues.
But the summit backfired with German newspapers devoting far more space to pictures of police firing water cannon onto hooded anarchists and other protestors than they did to Merkel’s diplomatic balancing act with fellow leaders of major world economies.
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