Twenty-one arrested after G8 summit protest

Disturbances broke out in Hamburg today after a march protesting at next week’s G8 summit, police said.

Officers used water cannon and batons to quell the unrest, and arrested 21 people, police said.

The march by some 4,000 anti-globalisation demonstrators, according to police estimates, went relatively peacefully, although some protesters threw flares and bags of paint at police.

After the march ended, several hundred people streamed on to the city’s Reeperbahn boulevard. Cars were damaged by flying beer bottles and rubbish containers were thrown into the street.

Some protesters erected barricades in the street around the building of the Red Flora protest organisation, which was one target of raids earlier this month against people suspected of organising violent attacks before the G8 summit.

Activists have said the pre-summit security measures are excessive. The Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, site of the June 6-8 summit, has been surrounded by a fence, and protests will be banned immediately outside the barrier.

Police brought in reinforcements from outside Hamburg for the protest today, a holiday in Germany, which coincided with a meeting of EU and Asian foreign ministers in the city.

Germany’s highest court upheld an order keeping the demonstration 500 yards away from the meeting venue.