I've scanned about 15 different sources (from public TV, to local newspapers)....so to sum up the basic protest activity at the Tesla factory:
1. Couple hundred activists (dressed in black) rode the train down to the Tesla factory in Grünheide on Friday....about an hour south of Berlin.
2. Some (doesn't appear all) did get to the outer fence area. Here....local and state police halted them.....arresting/detaining a couple of folks.
3. If you were around the Freienbrink autobahn exit area....you could not exit/enter....because of police efforts.
4. Supposedly, the group (whoever they are) suggest that they will have more efforts to enter the facility on Saturday.
5. Cops prepared (they had water cannons stationed there)....so they must have had prior 'intelligence' over what was developing.
6. Charges on those arrested? "Act of resistance, breach of the peace, damage to property, violations of the Assembly Act and trespassing" were list. Generally, as long as you offered to pay for your damages.....you could probably get off half of these and spend less than a month in some jail. On trespassing? I'm not sure how the judge might view things. The fact that 21 police were injured? Well....that's a problem for the protest folks if you can prove it in court.
7. Why? Well....Tesla is 'evil', 'capitalistic', etc. The other comment that comes out.....local authorities are accused of 'selling-out'....meaning that they were motivated in some way to support E-car construction.
8. Reviewing Twitter and RBB public commentary? I'd say it's pretty divided, with a fair number of Germans hyping up that forest destruction was readily approved for the plant, and in the mind of some....unnecessary.
This would bring me to the idea.....why pick a remote forest area....when you could have easily picked a 'dead' town like Rostock (208k) or Kaiserslautern (90k)? Both would have fairly large areas of industrial parks....closed factories and waiting for new 'money'.
9. Right-wingers? So far....no one utters that phrase for this crew....oddly. No Nazi symbiology or slogans. They just appear to be kids out for the extended weekend, for the thrill of getting arrested and camping out in the woods.
My view? If you don't do much of anything....with the trend downward spiraling on E-car sales....in less than three years....the factory will shut down, and you can get all hyped-up about the loss of a couple thousand jobs locally.
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