Sticks, batons, stones, knives: Escalation at Eritrea festival in the German state of Hesse

Major police deployment and rescue services at the Hessenhallen in Giessen! The controversial Eritrea Cultural Festival was to take place there on Saturday. But the preparations were stormed by opponents!

Parallel to the cultural festival, a meeting and rally was to take place, which was directed against the event. It had been registered with the city beforehand.

The festival has been taking place in Gießen since 2011. The organiser is the consulate of the state of Eritrea in Frankfurt. There were protests in 2019 as well. In the last two years, the festival could not take place because of Corona.

This year, seven Eritrean associations had filed an urgent application against the festival at the administrative court in Gießen. According to the associations, the large-scale event is used by the Eritrean regime to propagate inciting and violence-glorifying content. The application was rejected.

At 5 p.m., several participants of this meeting broke away and climbed over the fence of the Hessenhallen. There they attacked people who were busy setting up for the Eritrea Cultural Festival. They attacked the people with sticks, iron bars, stones and knives. Police officers were also hit by stones and slightly injured.

Additional forces from Wiesbaden, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Fulda and Darmstadt as well as officers of the Hessian riot police were quickly deployed to Gießen to support their colleagues on the ground. Pepper spray was used. Several attackers were temporarily arrested, knives and batons were seized.

Rescue workers took over the medical care of the injured. The police are investigating, among other things, suspected assault offences and breach of the peace. The cultural festival was finally cancelled by police order.

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