BERLIN: German police on Saturday fired tear gas and used water cannon to quell unrest at a controversial Eritrean music festival in the town of Giessen and 22 officers were injured.

“Twenty-two police were injured, mainly in incidents of stone throwing,” regional police said on Twitter.

About a thousand police were deployed in this town of 80,000 residents north of Frankfurt after last year’s edition of the festival degenerated into violence.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people had been expected to attend the festival, due to run till Sunday. Police did not give details of any arrests.

The organisers are accused of being close to the authorities in the small and secretive one-party state, where critics disappear into gulags and civilians are conscripted for life or forced into labour under an extreme policy of national service that has been likened to slavery.

A global pariah, the Red Sea nation has been sanctioned for meddling in regional conflicts, including most recently over abuses by its army in the Tigray war in Ethiopia.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2023