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Sign at the Turkish consulate in Hanover
Photo: Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa
State security is investigating after an attack on the Turkish Consulate General in Hanover. Several perpetrators damaged the building's windows on Tuesday evening, the police announced on Wednesday. Around 20 people threw stones at the consulate and hit the windows with iron bars. They fled when police officers arrived. The police later briefly arrested two people and recorded their personal details.
According to the information, the motive and background were initially unknown. Before the attack, there was a demonstration in the city center of Hanover under the title "Against the attacks by national Turks in Belgium" in which, according to the police, up to 450 people took part, presumably with a Turkish-Kurdish background. The police reported that there were repeated criminal calls from individual participants. In addition, flags with forbidden symbols were waved, and masked people later threw pyrotechnics at police officers. The meeting was therefore dissolved after two hours.
In total, the officers initiated nine criminal proceedings, including for the particularly serious case of breach of the peace, use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations and violations of the Explosives Act.
Federal government condemns attack
The Federal Government strongly condemned the attack on the Consulate General. "Violence - regardless of its form - has no place in our society," said a spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin on Wednesday. "We are of course in contact with the Turkish side on this issue, and we hope that the perpetrators will now be quickly identified and held criminally responsible."
The Turkish Foreign Ministry blamed supporters of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). They organized the attack on the entrance to the Turkish consulate. After the attack, German representatives were contacted and reminded that they were "responsible for the security of our citizens and diplomatic facilities."
However, the Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin assured on Wednesday afternoon that they had no information about the authorship and referred to the ongoing investigations.
kfr/sun/dpa