Demonstration

About a week and a half ago, in Heiligendamm, there was a G8 summit, accompanied by the usual demonstrations, skirmishes between demonstrators and police, arrests, and other newsworthy stuff. Last Friday, it turned out that although the summit has long ended, the demonstrators and police are still going strong. On the Universitätsplatz, some people were braving the drizzle and handing out small leaflets complaining about the treatment of the demonstrators by the police, and calling for a human rights commision to be installed, whose duty it would be to check that the police abide by the laws they claim to uphold. I also got a leaflet, and looked at it, whereupon the person who gave it to me said: "I don't know what's in there, I'm just drinking beer [showed me his bottle] and handing out leaflets."
I went into a shop to buy something, and when I came out again, I found some fifteem policemen in pure green uniforms¹ idly standing by and watching a demonstration of about five people with signs around their necks (I unfortunately forgot to read them). I asked what was going on, and a lady standing next to me cheerily informed me that 'we were being checked'. As I did not have a Personalausweis with me, although foreigners should always have one at hand, I did not share her apparent feelings on this. It turned out, however, that only the participants in the demonstration were being checked, since they had not requested permission to proceed with this demonstration from the local authorities. The officer who told me this said: "It's no big deal, they can go on demonstrating, but we'll just take down their names." I stayed a while, to see whether anything would happen, but when after five minutes nothing noteworthy had taken place, I decided to go home.
On the whole, I felt this 'clash' was best described by the German word 'gemütlich'.

¹The German police wear green, but these uniforms were slightly different from the ones worn by the usual patrols. Maybe they were riot police...