MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of left-wing extremists in Germany is on the rise, with thousands of radicals ready to resort to violence, Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV) President Hans-Georg Maassen told the Neuen Osnabruecker Zeitung in an interview published Saturday.
“There are a lot of left extremists in Germany – about 28,000 people with 8,500 of them being ready to resort to violence, and the number is increasing,” Maassen said.
“Left extremists regard the state and the police as instruments of repression and oppression, against whom any violence is acceptable,” Maassen said.
The statement was made a week after the G20 summit in the German city of Hamburg, during which protesters set fire to cars, threw bottles and stones at police, looted shops and barricaded streets.
A total of 20,000 officers were stationed locally in order to ensure peaceful protests, with nearly 500 of them injured in clashes with demonstrators.
