Fresh fighting at anti-G8 protest in Rostock (1st Lead)

Jun 4, 2007, 11:27 GMT

Rostock, Germany - Radical demonstrators clashed anew Monday with riot police in the German city of Rostock, two days after violent clashes at protests against this week's G8 (Group of Eight) summit.

Police said they made four arrests after bottles were thrown and a photo journalist was injured.

The rest of the demonstration by about 1,000 people against German visa laws was peaceful and a blockade of an immigration-agency building was only of brief duration.

Between 200 and 300 of the demonstrators Monday were radicals, many of them wearing black clothing and masks, a uniform which identifies them among friends and hides their faces from their police foes.

The arrests were made for wearing masks, which has been declared an offence at demonstrations in Germany.

The city, 25 kilometres north-east of the Heilegendamm venue for the June 6-8 summit, was being cleaned up Monday after an anti-G8 riot on Saturday which injured nearly 1,000 police and protesters.

Monday's protests were for 'global freedom of migration.' Part of the anti-G8 movement regards immigration laws as racist and oppressive because visa rules prevent poor people from moving to Germany to live.

The procession also stopped to pay tribute near a Rostock block of flats set on fire in 1992 by neo-Nazis who had been terrorizing Vietnamese-born residents.

In Berlin, interior ministry spokesman Stefan Kaller said that among the violent demonstrators arrested Saturday, 15 to 20 per cent had come from outside Germany.

He denied spot-checks at German frontiers and airports had been too lax. Germany normally has no passport checks on arrivals from 14 European nations, but travellers have had to have their identity documents ready since late May.

Kaller said that had enabled border police to check 500,000 arrivals, denying entry to 85 persons.

Protest groups had earlier advertised the Saturday rally throughout Europe as a riposte to the club of seven Western nations and Russia, which are to discuss economic, climate-change and other policies from Wednesday.