2009-08-01 The age: German radicals turn to arson (Luksusautojen tuhopoltoista)

[Don Pedro]

Uusi trendi Berliinissä: luksusautojen tuhopoltto

Mikäli suunnittelet automatkan tekemistä Berliiniin ja satut omistamaan arvokkaan auton, niin kannattaa harkita reissua kahdesti – tai sitten ainakin varmistua siitä että auto tulee matkan aikana pysäköityä tuhopolttajilta turvalliseen paikkaan. Viimeisen kuuden kuukauden aikana Saksan pääkaupungissa Berliinissä on nimittäin pantu palamaan arvokkaita autoja melko tarkalleen yhden auton päivätahdilla.

Tuhopolttajat käyttäjät tihutöissään auton hitaasti palamaan sytyttäviä grillisytykkeitä, joten siinä vaiheessa kun palo on päässyt irralleen ja poliisit paikalle, niin tuhotyöstä vastuussa olevat ovat jo pitkällä. Tuhopolttajien suosiossa ovat erityisesti arvoautot, kuten Porschet, Bemarit, Mersut ja jopa Volkkarit. Tuhopolttojen motiivina on siis ilmeisesti ainakin olevinaan jonkinlainen kasvavien tulo-erojen kritisointi. Berliinin poliisi myöntääkin, että viimeisen kuuden kuukauden aikana tehdystä  170 autojen tuhopoltosta ainakin 93 on ollut poliittisesti motivoituja.

Kyberavaruutta seuraavien näkökulmasta asian tekee mielenkiintoiseksi se, että autojen tuhopoltoista on viime viikkoihin asti löytynyt lähes reaaliajassa päivitetyt sijainti- ja merkkitiedot (tosin viimeiset päivitykset näyttävät nyt olevan muutaman viikon takaa). Autojen "tuohopolttokartta" löytyy osoitteesta brennende-autos.de

Tama kommentti otettu osoitteesta http://www.hilavitkutin.com/2009/08/05/uusi-trendi-berliinissa-luksusautojen-tuhopoltto/

Alkuperainen teksti, jossa syytellaan mm. Berliinin pormestaria vasemmistoradikaalien hyysaamisesta, osoitteessa http://www.theage.com.au/world/german-radicals-turn-to-arson-20090731-e4hf.html

German radicals turn to arson
Paola Totaro, Berlin
August 1, 2009

THEY occur at a rate of nearly one a night, without warning or fanfare. By the time the police arrive, all that remains are smoking wrecks. Even the identifying badges — Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, VW — are often obliterated by fire.

In a city haunted more by its extreme right-wing past, Berlin is in the throes of a renaissance of extremist, left-wing political activism. And torching cars, particularly expensive ones, has become the crime de rigueur.

During the past six months, more than 170 cars have been destroyed by fire in Berlin and police confirm conservatively that 93 were politically motivated attacks.

A mysterious, single page website, brennende-autos.de (Burning Cars of Berlin), shows the number of cars set alight and where the crimes occurred, revealing clusters in ''richer'' areas, or in suburbs where gentrification and redevelopment are changing the demographic of local neighbourhoods.

Demonstrations and protests in Berlin have also become more violent. During the past seven months traditional street marches or political celebrations such as May Day — when 21 police were hurt and 102 arrests made — have degenerated into ugly confrontations between left-wing activists and an increasingly frustrated police force.

In December, a neo-Nazi rally organised in Lichtenberg in east Berlin sparked a violent clash with opposing left-wing groups that led to the use of water cannon and the deployment of more than 1600 riot police.

According to a spokeswoman for the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz (the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), there has been a measurable increase in left-wing extremist action, including the targeting of police and the property of businesses perceived to be involved in military or ''imperialist'' activities.

DHL, a company involved in logistics for the German armed forces, has been a recent target.

''It is not just anti-militarism we are seeing ... it is anti-imperialism, a catalogue of anti-things ... anti-fascism, anti-gentrification. The people we are seeing are the so-called 'autonoma', people operating in groups without hierarchy, who are not well organised and so classical anarchy is in the background of their thinking,'' she says.

''Yes, they are young in the main and while we do not see it as another beginning of ['70s-style] left-wing terrorism, we do not underestimate what is done through these violent actions ... the big difference for now is that it is violence against property, not against people.''

This week, an evening walk along the riverside in west Berlin's affluent Tiergarten riverside district revealed four burnt cars on a single avenue.

Frank Millert, a spokesman for the Berlin police, described the increase in politically motivated arson as sizeable, with numbers close to doubling each year over the past three years.

Police cars, too, are being targeted. The favoured method is to use the slow-burn barbecue fire starters, which take time to smoulder and provide plenty of get-away time for the perpetrators.

''It is very difficult to get evidence. The fire can be started underneath a car but the person that did it can be many streets away when it is alight,'' Mr Millert said.

Since 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, there has been increasingly vociferous opposition to the wave of redevelopment and gentrification that has transformed areas of east Berlin, traditionally occupied by artists, into smart apartments and commercial centres.

The phenomenon has also sparked a schism between the police, the left-leaning mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and the conservative national Government, amid claims that left-wing political crimes are treated with less rigour than those of the extreme right.

According to the head of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, authorities are not doing enough to stymie the rise in left-wing violence and protests like May Day this year resulted in more police being injured than ever before.

He also accused Mr Wowereit and his left-wing governing coalition of being openly sympathetic to the extremists.

Kuvia Spiegelissa: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-43610.html

Autojen polttokartta siis osoitteessa: http://www.brennende-autos.de/