Rostock (dpa/mv) - The Rostock police are preparing for all scenarios with a view to the demonstrations announced to mark the 30th anniversary of the Lichtenhagen riots. He doesn't hope there will be a fight. The police also calculate that, said Rostock's police chief Achim Segebarth of the "Ostsee-Zeitung" (Tuesday). The sheer number of participants is not the problem at first. "How the situation develops will depend on how large the group of disruptors will be - that is, those people who seek violence and confrontation. We can't estimate that yet."
An alliance has called for a major demonstration in Rostock-Lichtenhagen on August 27th. The motto is "Then as now: remembering means changing". The police not only have this event in view, but the entire commemoration week for the 30th anniversary of the racist pogrom. "Of course we also see mobilization in the social networks. But it's registered as a peaceful commemoration," says Segebarth.
A rally in front of the Rostock town hall is also planned for next Sunday; more were announced for Schwerin and in front of the central reception center for refugees in Nostorf-Horst. The Rostock police will probably also have work to do on Sunday accompanying football fans, because the second division clubs FC Hansa and FC St. Pauli are playing against each other in the Hanseatic city.
Many commemorative events in the coming week will commemorate the days from August 22 to 26, 1992, when residents and neo-Nazis in the Lichtenhagen district attacked the central reception center for asylum seekers and a hostel for Vietnamese workers and partly set them on fire, to the applause of thousands of onlookers. The police could not get the situation under control. The riots are considered to be the worst racist attacks in post-war German history up to that point.
