Police used pepper spray and batons against protestors in the German city of Kassel in the early hours of Friday morning as anti-war demonstrators attempted to block the entrance to an arms factory.
Officers said that the protestors had begun to throw objects at them.
Activists for the “Disarm Rheinmetall” movement have been calling for protests across the country to try and stop the production and delivery of weapons, including for the war in Ukraine.
The demonstrators had sought to block the morning shift from entering the factory of Rheinmetall’s competitor Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. However, the police forced them to disperse. Protestors began marching towards downtown Kassel, where they encountered several other police blockades.
The demonstration is expected to continue until Sunday.
How big are Germany’s arms exports?
Germany is the fifth biggest exporter of arms in the world, coming in just behind China. In 2021, the German arms industry was worth €9.35 billion ($9.34 billion), a significant leap on pre-pandemic sales of €8 billion.
In an interview with the TAZ newspaper, one of the organizers, Conni Lenert, called Rheinmetall and similar firms “profiteers of human suffering.”
Asked about the war in Ukraine specifically, another organizer, Nina Kemper, said that “there is no such thing as a war for peace,” and Lenert added that “there cannot be peace in our capitalist system,” because so many people profit off the buying and selling of weapons.
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Edited by: Rob Turner
