For weeks, climate activists have been drumming for a protest camp in Hamburg. According to the police, the groups are planning mass actions around the “System Change Camp” (9. – 15.8), but also workshops and lectures. These include groups such as “Ende Gelände”, which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes as being infiltrated by extremists, as well as radical left-wing groups such as the “Interventionalist Left Hamburg”, including several dozen other actors such as “Extinction Rebellion” or the BUND. The protest camp, to which the organizers expect 4,000 to 6,000 people, is aimed particularly at the construction of new terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Now the applicants have achieved success in court – at least in part.
The climate protesters had chosen the fairgrounds in the Hamburg city park as the meeting place and were planning to set up two larger and two smaller circus tents, 40 supply and event tents, sleeping tents, field kitchens and fresh water and waste water infrastructure.
The assembly authority, which is based at the police, prohibited this and referred the organizers to a replacement area in the Altonaer Volkspark, a wasteland. The green and recreational areas in the city park would be severely damaged by seven days of use – this is how the authority justified the relocation. In addition, the city prohibited the erection of sleeping tents, two smaller circus tents, the construction of field kitchen complexes and other food and drink stands, as well as the construction of more than 40 supply and event tents and pavilions.
A spokesman for the camp then explained: “We have prepared a large program for a week with many different political events. Denying us the necessary infrastructure with sleeping tents, food supply and even drinking water is an affront to us and a violation of the law. Seems as if there are enemies of the constitution in the Hamburg Assembly Authority.”
The Hamburg Administrative Court has now granted an urgent application by the applicants in relation to the sleeping tents and other infrastructure reasons. According to the court, the climate camp is “with a high degree of probability” to be classified as an assembly protected by Article 8 of the Basic Law and the Assembly Act. This includes the infrastructural facilities of the climate camp mentioned, because there is a connection to the content of the statement of opinion intended by the camp and the facilities are also likely to be necessary from a logistical point of view for the implementation of the seven-day meeting. In this respect, reasons for restricting the meeting are “not apparent”.
The relocation of the meeting from the Festwiese in Hamburg Stadtpark to the area at Altonaer Volkspark, on the other hand, is in all likelihood “not objectionable”. The existing plants and animals in the city park would enjoy special protection against disturbances and harmful effects of all kinds that went beyond the intended use. In addition, the fairground is used for the recreation of the Hamburg population. Both purposes of the fairground would be “significantly and long-term impaired” by the assembly. According to the court, the opinion-forming intended with the climate camp can also take place on the replacement area.
The case is reminiscent of the debates surrounding the G-20 summit five years ago in Hamburg. The G-20 opponents originally wanted to set up their camp in the Hamburg city park. The District Office North had not allowed that. After several urgent court decisions, the Federal Constitutional Court obliged the city to decide again whether the camp should be tolerated. As a result, the G-20 opponents registered the tent camp on the Entenwerder peninsula on the North Elbe. At that time, the police had blocked access to the Entenwerder peninsula for a short time. This was unlawful, the administrative court ruled five years later in May 2022.
According to the judges, the registered camp fell largely under the fundamental right to freedom of assembly. Against this background, the initial ban on the protest camp and the later ban on sleeping tents, showers and kitchens were illegal. Before the summit meeting of the world’s most important economic powers from July 6th to 8th, 2017, there were fears of massive riots during protests. In fact, heavy riots and looting then overshadowed the meeting.
The Federal Administrative Court also emphasized the protection of freedom of assembly for protest camps in a judgment of May this year, which concerned a protest camp in Garzweiler in 2017. Now there should be more legal tug-of-war: an appeal can be lodged with the Higher Administrative Court against the verdict in the first instance on the climate camp in Hamburg next week.
