Germany bans main website of far-left militants & Antifa......
AFPAugust 25, 2017

A rioter throws a stone during protests in Hamburg against a G20 summit in July (AFP Photo/Christof STACHE)
Berlin (AFP) - Germany on Friday banned the country's main online platform for far-left activists and militants, seven weeks after anticapitalist protesters rioted during a G20 summit in Hamburg.

The site, linksunten-indymedia.org, has allowed anonymous users to, for example, announce demonstrations or blockades of neo-Nazi rallies, but also to celebrate violence against police or to share instructions on making molotov cocktails.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said "operating the website from now on is a criminal offence" after police had served the order in the morning and the website went offline.


De Maiziere has warned repeatedly that police and security services must crack down on far-left and anarchist groups just as they do against far-right organisations.

The ban of the site, and a search of premises in the western university city of Freiburg near the French border, comes a month before national elections in which Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek a fourth term.

Police searched five separate locations and confiscated knives, batons and slingshots, but no arrests were made.

Germany's domestic security service says in its annual report that the website launched in 2009 has become the main platform on which militant far-left groups posted claims of responsibility for acts of vandalism and violence.

It was also a major platform for activists who organised rallies, protests and blockades during the Group of 20 summit hosted by the northern port city of Hamburg in early July.

The global summit that brought together US President Donald Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping and other leaders was marred by mass protests, sit-in blockades and street clashes where anarchist mobs battled riot police, torched cars and looted shops.https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-bans-main-website-far-left-militants-094209884.html