Wiesbaden started up a city art fest this week. Normally, most folks wouldn't care. However, this got a bit twisted last night over a statue placed near the Deutsche Einheit (middle of town).
Some group entered a new statue into the contest.....a gold four-meter tall (roughly 15 feet) statue of Turkey's Erdogan. His hand is stretched out and pointing. During the night, someone ran up and painted 'F*CK' over the chest. Cops have been put on the scene, in fair numbers.....to protect the statue.
I went by this morning at 8:00 AM and noted at least twelve cops in the area...'protecting' the gold Erdogan. They have to allow it to stand until Sunday afternoon when the fest ends.
Was the graffiti expected? My guess is yes. And I might suggest that the artist wanted the chest slogan to appear. Anti-Erdogan chatter? Here in Wiesbaden, you have various folks who are anti-Erdogan (the Germans and the Kurds, along with some Turks). Pro-Erdogan? A fair number of Turks in town are a bit pro, at least in my humble opinion.
UPDATE: The authorities say that any challenge to public order.....means that the statue is taken down immediately. I have my doubts that it'll be there through Thursday night.
Wed morning UPDATE: Well, authorities said that threats were made, and they removed the statue last night. It's destination? Unknown.
3 comments:
When I lived there in 90-96, and visited the Market Square area and such, I do not recall many security cameras. The technology was there of course but not as it is today. How has security improved, as far as surveillance cameras goes, in recent times? Are they all over the place?
I would take a guess that just in the train station itself...there's probably thirty security cameras. The rest of town? Maybe on up to 250 public-operated ones and more than 2,000 private business operated ones. Each point where you have a major bus-stop (probably eight of them), there's a minimum of two cameras each. In the shopping district, maybe another forty.
For this story, the art fest management folks were told last night that a political statue was coming (otherwise, nothing said). So when they put it up (four meters tall) and took off the wrapping....it was a shock. Probably only took two hours for the graffiti to go on, and the cops showed up after that. I'll check it out in the morning and take a picture. It has to come down as the art fest ends...no one says where it'll go next. I think it was planned by the anti-Erdogan crowd.
Security camera wise, it is amazing how many cameras are around and recording. Course, a lot just record and don't have anyone watching them. You can step into any coffee shop in town, and there's at least one camera. Even the city buses have them (double-bus will have six running and feeding into some data system).
Thank you for the update.
Now that I am here in Las Vegas, I can barely turn around without there being a security camera.
Not just talking about 'The Strip' or the casinos or resorts etc, but even the shopping malls or the gas stations or the ... You get the idea. They are everywhere.
Again, thanks for the clarification.
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