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Demo at Görlitzer Park in Berlin-Kreuzberg
Photo: Annette Riedl / picture alliance / dpa
“The Görli stays up,” that was one of the slogans shouted during the demonstration in Berlin-Kreuzberg on Saturday afternoon.
Several hundred people marched through the Wrangelkiez to demonstrate against the plans of the black-red Senate.
Specifically, it is about the announced fencing and night-time closure of Görlitz Park by the state government, which the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district continues to oppose.
One speaker said that building the fence would not solve any problems and that drug use and homeless people would continue to exist if the fence were to be built.
Another criticized the fence project as “populist actionism” that only costs money that would be better invested in social projects.
A demonstrator on a cargo bike had an oversized garden gnome with a fence tucked under his arm.
A woman had ostentatiously fenced herself in.
Numerous demo participants had posters with them that read, for example, “Do you still have all the pickets on the fence?” or “1 fence = 0 solution.”
Berlin's police chief Barbara Slowik, however, once again spoke out in favor of fencing and closing off the park at night.
The police found almost 5,800 crimes in the Wrangelkiez including the park area last year, Slowik told the Tagesspiegel.
That is a decrease of twelve percent compared to the previous year.
However, crime in the Wrangelkiez and Görlitzer Park remains high, especially due to drug trafficking, violations of immigration law, acts of violence and robbery.
Of the 5,800 crimes there, around a quarter, around 1,450, were committed in Görlitzer Park.
She therefore considers the plans to close the park between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. to be correct.
Around 400 people took part in the demonstration against the state government's plans, as a spokesman for the Berlin situation center said on Sunday morning.
ipp/dpa