German police halted a practice carrying soccer followers between the northern German cities of Rostock and Hamburg on Saturday evening, recording the identities of 855 Hamburg supporters in an operation that lasted round six hours.
The Hamburg (HSV) followers have been coming back from their staff’s second-division fixture away at Hansa Rostock (2-2) when some 400 officers stopped the practice at round 8 p.m. native time within the city of Bergedorf, simply outdoors Hamburg.
Police stated they have been in search of 60 folks allegedly concerned in an incident on September 16, 2023, when a brawl broke out at Mannheim important station between HSV followers who have been on their strategy to the southwestern city of Elversberg and Borussia Dortmund followers who have been en path to Freiburg, close to the Swiss border.
They have been additionally in search of followers who had allegedly thrown bottles at police at Rostock central station earlier within the night.
Police ‘super-recognizers’ arrange ‘identification lane’
After processing the followers by a so-called identification lane with the assistance of specialist “super recognizer” officers, police stated they efficiently recognized 52 of these they have been in search of.
Meanwhile, a whole bunch of harmless followers and different passengers have been compelled to attend their activate the practice.
Police stated no arrests have been made and that every one passengers have been allowed to proceed their journey at round 2.30 a.m. on Sunday morning.
According to German rail operator Deutsche Bahn, the operation precipitated delays throughout the area.
In an announcement, police stated: “Despite the complexity of the case and the difficulties in identifying the culprits, [officers] have made it their aim to identify as many of those responsible as possible.”
Operation lead officer Jan Müller stated: “Breach of the peace is a serious crime which threatens the security and peace of our society. We take these acts extremely seriously and are deploying all available resources to identify those responsible.”
A press release from supporter representatives is anticipated in some unspecified time in the future on Sunday.
Escalating tensions between followers and police
Saturday evening’s operation got here amid rising tensions between police and soccer followers in Germany forward of the European Championship within the nation this summer time, with each events accusing one another of contributing to the escalation.
While police have accused followers of refusing dialogue with officers and resorting to violence, fan teams and authorized help organizations have criticized police for his or her more and more aggressive method to policing soccer matches – significantly the indiscriminate deployment of pepper spray in confined areas of packed stadiums.
Fan and authorized help teams have additionally criticized the police database on which the identities and particulars of hundreds of soccer supporters are saved for as much as 5 years.
The Gewalttäter Sport — “violent criminals sport” — database (GTS) incorporates not solely the identities of soccer followers discovered responsible of prison offenses but additionally hundreds of individuals merely caught up in ID checks in reference to soccer matches, akin to that carried out on 855 folks in Bergedorf on Saturday evening.
Police say that the GTS database, which has shrunk from over 13,000 folks in 2011 to five,600 in December final yr, allows officers to “take specifically targeted measures and differentiate between troublemakers and non-troublemakers.” Legal help teams say it infringes information safety legal guidelines and have demanded its abolition.
The present German coalition authorities has promised to evaluation the GTS database concerning “legality, deletion deadlines, transparency and data protection.”
Like many different video games throughout Germany, Saturday’s fixture between Hansa Rostock and Hamburg was additionally briefly interrupted by ongoing fan protests in opposition to the German Football League (DFL)’s deliberate cope with a non-public fairness investor.
This article was written utilizing materials from the DPA press company