Traffic jams, stress, stunk! Once again, activists from the “Last Generation” initiative slowed down commuter traffic by blocking roads on Monday. But some motorists didn’t put up with it – and summarily pulled the demonstrators out of traffic!
By Boris Dombrowski, Ole Kroning and Stefan Peter
City motorway A 100, Messedamm/corner of Halenseestraße, Monday morning. Five activists sat on the asphalt, blocked the four-lane road at a traffic light. A Twitter video shows how several men try to pull the activists off the road so that at least one Smart can finally drive on.
Because: “There was a doctor in there who was literally begging the activists to let her through because she urgently needed an operation,” said Marcel Skowron (40), head of B&S Bauunternehmen GmbH from Bernau, on Monday to the BZ “But nobody did clear the road!”
So Skowron and other motorists tackled it themselves – without success. The activists always jumped back into the street. After about ten minutes the police came.
The activists also paralyzed traffic with sit-ins on the Spandauer Damm Bridge and on Schwarzbacher Straße. The police took a total of 20 people into custody.
Now the judge should also examine a connection custody. Means: a night buzzing …
Even the BSR pushed activists aside. “In our opinion, it was not justified to get the activists off the street themselves,” said a BSR spokesman. “The right way would have been to call the police to end the road blockade. We will investigate the matter and evaluate the incident with the employees involved.”
The fact is that many Berliners have run out of patience with the activists’ actions.
“All participants should be brought before the magistrate!”
The constant actions of the radical eco-activists also occupy the state politics. However, opinions differ.
► Björn Jotzo (47), domestic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group: “The blockers deliberately exceed the limits of freedom of assembly in order to chaotic the city. As a result, many people suffer serious losses – emergency services are also hampered. Berlin must not become a playing field for blockers – completely independent of their concerns.”
► Green MP Vasili Franco (29): “The right to demonstrate is a valuable asset and does not exclude motorways either. Not everyone has to approve of the form of protest, but enforcement of the state monopoly on the use of force is not the responsibility of angry drivers, but of the state.”
► Frank Balzer (57, CDU): “The actions are an unjustified intervention in road traffic. A kind of coercion, totally unacceptable! All participants should be brought before the magistrate.”