Frankfurt's Municipal Department for Public Order has announced a ban on all actions planned by the Blockupy Frankfurt alliance for the European Days of Action scheduled for May 16 to 19 in Germany's financial capital.

According to the Blockupy Frankfurt website, the ban is an attempt to curb any form of protest against European Union financial and political leaders whose decisions have cut deeply into the lives of millions of Europeans. For the Days of Action, more than a dozen members of the alliance have been preparing protests against the austerity policies forwarded by European governments and the Troika, composed of the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Union and the IMF.

Blockupy Frankfurt had filed various requests for its protests, in the forms of demonstrations, rallies, vigils and meetings (asambleas). On the coalition's website, Blockupiers wrote, "This ban is a scandalous incident quite unique in the history of the Federal Republic and an open insult on the right to demonstrate guaranteed by the constitution.

"We urge that the protest against the crisis politics might take place also in the banking area of Frankfurt and in front of ECB headquarters, which is in accordance with the longstanding and consistent case law of the Federal Administrative Court. As democrats we’re extremely appalled about this unlawful and non-democratic procedure. We’re demanding an immediate [revocation] of this total ban."

The Blockupy report concludes: "What could take place on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, on Madrid’s Puerta del Sol or in New York’s Zuccotti Park has to be possible also in Frankfurt."

In response to the ban, Germany's "Interventionist Left" (http://www.dazwischengehen.org/story/2012/05/blockupy-frankfurt-wird-sta... clarified further in a communique that what the government's action implies amid a crisis of capitalism that isn't going away.

"Germany is always one step ahead of all competing powers. Whereas the Greek, the Spanish and the Italian governments, who survived their crises management at least until now, leave people the room to protest in Athens, Madrid and Rome against deprivation, disfranchisement and degradation, the Days of Action to be held in Frankfurt from May 16th to May 19th have been banned. This ban has to fall, and it will fall!"

The communique from the "Interventionist Left" goes on to say, "What is happening to the people in Southern and Eastern Europe right now has its [precedent] in German conditions, where it was enforced here years before, first under socialdemocratic-green, then under christian-liberal regimes. Now it is our duty to recreate in Frankfurt what we have been taught by the demonstrations and asambleas in Athens, Madrid and Rome. Let’s show to the world that we also are able to learn from Tunis and Cairo, from Washington, Santiago de Chile, Tehran and London.

"When we will not accept this ban, we will at least do so out of a sense of responsibility for Europe: Let’s draw a line now – radical democracy, down with fiscal pact dictatorship."