IMAGO / dts news agency
Monday, March 2
From 10 pm on Sunday evening, police officers guarded the entrances, only letting people out of the park, with most of the entrance gates locked. In the hours before it closed yesterday, around 300 people gathered to protest the Görlitzer Park fence.
The protest remained peaceful, with one person was arrested on suspicion of physical assault. One speaker also announced that the ordinance to close the park will be taken to court.
A representative of the Greens moderated some of the demonstration. The people gathered for a concert under the motto “Rave against the fence”, at which about 200 police forces were deployed. They held banners including the phrase “Kai Wegner lies to you”.
The fence has proven very controversial, with many speaking out against it as an effective measure to stop crime in Görlitzer Park. However, CDU Interior Expert Burkard Dregger defended the nightly closure to rbb this morning.
He said that the park had long been a drug trading location yet admitted that drug trafficking may now be pushed onto the surrounding streets. They will also act against it, as that is the task of politics, he claimed. A scientific evaluation will investigate the effectiveness of the nightly closure with results available by the end of the year.