GERMANY:German police have raided 40 homes and offices of extreme-left organisations that they suspect of planning violent attacks to disrupt next month's G8 summit on the Baltic coast.
Over 900 police officers and officials were involved in the raids that took place yesterday at 8am in Berlin, Hamburg and other cities.
Well-known and lesser-known protest groups were targeted in the raids, which took place under legislation that allows searches "on the suspicion of creation of a terrorist group".
Two named targets of the raids were the "Militant Anti-Military Initiative" and a group called the "Militant Group", which has admitted responsibility for petrol bomb attacks in recent months on the premises of the Italian trade commission and an association of Turkish businessmen.
Anti-globalisation group Attac, itself not targeted, called the raids "an attempt to criminalise the entire spectrum of G8 protesters".
Spontaneous "solidarity" demonstrations were held in Berlin yesterday to protest against the destruction and confiscation of property during the raids. Seven offices and projects were searched in Berlin and police confiscated a computer server that hosts many left-wing organisations' websites. Several protesters were taken into custody.
"The actions of the criminal police has nothing to do with normal investigation but instead serves an illegal political end: defaming G8 protest in public as terrorism," said Christoph Kleine of Avanti, one of the organisations whose premises were searched.
"Summit protesters are to be silenced and internal communication of the movement is to be handicapped and spied on. The plan won't work. I'm confident that the solidarity will be stronger than the repression."
A spokesman for the criminal police said yesterday's raids were the result of 18 months of investigation into Germany's lively left-wing scene.
It was the first visible action in what will be the largest postwar security operation the country has ever seen ahead of next month's G8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
World leaders will be sealed off from an expected 100,000 protesters by a 2.5m-high, 13km-long welded-mesh fence, topped with razor wire and cameras, creating a huge exclusion zone around Heiligendamm's historical beach-side resort complex.
Authorities hope that imposing rigorous border checks similar to those in operation during last year's World Cup will help weed out up to 3,000 violent protesters expected to try and enter the country before the summit.