17:05 CET: Above a pic­ture of the Haupt­wache end of Germany’s busiest shop­ping street (the Zeil) right now.
16:43 CET: To Brit­ish eyes the police tac­tic of dis­persal and space pro­tec­tion may look like away of deny­ing Blockupy nice cov­er­age of massed ranks, but it also per­mits “nomadic” tac­tics as Brit­ish pro­test­ers adop­ted in Lon­don in 2010. See pre­vi­ous blogs. There are already reports of a hit and run paint attack on some coun­cil offices in cent­ral Frank­furt.
16:11 CET: the police have acted to pre­vent a planned assembly before the DGB House in Frank­furt (69 – 77 Wil­helm Leuschnerstrasse/​Lower Main Quay) by ket­tling the prop­erty, des­pite the argu­ments of act­iv­ists that they are per­mit­ted to be there.
15:47 CET: the Blockupy Alli­ance are con­firm­ing in their cur­rent press con­fer­ence that demon­stra­tions and spon­tan­eous actions will take place irre­spect­ive of the Kas­sel court’s decision. Die Linke rep­res­ent­at­ive in Hesse’s state par­lia­ment has called the total ban as a “mess without an end”, while Interior Min­is­ter Rhein has argued that a proper if dif­fi­cult bal­ance has been main­tained between con­sti­tu­tional rights and people’s well-​being. The FDP, Greens and SPD have reaf­firmed their belief in the right to protest, while refus­ing to cri­ti­cise the decision of the Kas­sel court.

15:20 CET: Police have openly stated that they are enfor­cing a “Space Pro­tec­tion Concept” fol­low­ing the decision of Hesse’s Admin­is­trat­ive Appeals Court. This means that police will stop any sus­pi­cious group and given the a verbal warn­ing. If this is unpro­duct­ive, group mem­bers will be asked to pro­duce papers grant­ing express approval to be where they are. If these are not forth­com­ing, all per­sons will be taken into pre­vent­at­ive deten­tion.
14:55 CET: Frank­furt, like many large cit­ies, has tour guides who lead groups around the tour­ist sites. Except not any more — appar­ently the group tours qual­ify as assem­blies and are thus banned until Sunday

14:40 CET: the con­firm­a­tion of the total ban on protests and the heavy police pres­ence around Willy-​Brandt Platz has led to a call for Blockupy act­iv­ists to meet at 16:00 local time on the banks of the Main river before the HQ of the Alli­ance of Ger­man Trades Uni­ons (DGB).

14:35 CET: For those who don’t know, Frankfurt’s ECB tower is to be super­seded by a lar­ger struc­ture in the east part of the city, close to the port. I men­tion this because a police heli­copter is clearly hov­er­ing over this part of town, which is cur­rently a large build­ing site.

14:10 CET: Hessen’s main news chan­nel is report­ing that the annual lay­ing of a wreath at a monu­ment to the homo­sexual vic­tims of the Nazis, planned for Thursday, has been banned by the author­it­ies. It appears to qual­ify as a protest for the pur­poses of the global ban on demonstrations.

13:50 CET: The cur­rent head­line of the Frank­furter Rundschau’s web­site sums it up (tr.):

13:30 CET: roundup:

• police have con­firmed that they cleared c.340 demon­strat­ors from the Occupy Camp this morn­ing, mak­ing 13 arrests.
• The Hes­sian Appeal Court for Admin­is­trat­ive Claims has rein­stated a ban on all protest in Frank­furt am Main until but not includ­ing Sat­urday 19 May. Blockupy Alli­ance have stated that Blockupy will take place regard­less. Die Linke, who were one of the respond­ents, have appealed to the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tional Court.
• The author­it­ies’ attempts to engender a state of fear and para­noia in Frank­furt has res­ul­ted in a quiet, car-​free cent­ral Frankfurt.

11:00 CET: blog paused.

11:00 CET: Britain’s Guard­ian news­pa­per is happy to report on its front­page that an Occupy protest in Moscow has been cleared with 14 arrests, but has com­pletely ignored the clear­ance of Occupy Frankfurt.

10:57 CET: the Camp has been cleared of Occu­pists. Towards the end the police became more force­ful, with one hit­ting a peace­ful pro­tester round the head in front of cameras.

10:52 CET: the Camp has for the most part been cleared of Occu­pists, with the c.10 remain­ing seated pro­test­ers now being car­ried away.

10:50 CET: The first full Blockupy event will be a rally at 14:00 in Taun­su­an­lage (the park­land between the ECB and Deutsche Bank).

10:33 CET: unbe­liev­ably police­men in chem­ical emer­gency pro­tec­tion suits have entered the camp to dis­pose of the pad­dling pools filled with paint.

10:32 CET: police have made their first arrest — the grounds are unclear.

10:27 CET: Finally a proper livestream http://​bam​buser​.com/​v​/​2​6​4​9​532

10:20 CET: as the police are sprayed with water-​based paints, it should not be for­got­ten that this evic­tion is tak­ing place in the con­text of a clearly uncon­sti­tu­tional attempt by the author­it­ies to ban all protest from Frank­furt am Main dur­ing 16 – 19 May. On appeal the Frank­furt Admin­is­trat­ive Court has per­mit­ted a three of the fif­teen pro­posed actions. Fur­ther­more, the police have had to res­cind their ban on named indi­vidu­als from enter­ing inner Frank­furt (which amoun­ted for many to house arrest).

10:10 CET: One of Occupy Frankfurt’s actions was to util­ise the num­ber of ex-​finance work­ers who were sup­port­ing the camp, includ­ing one credit rater from Dresdner Bank and another that was a law­yer for Deutsche Bank. The camp set up its own mon­et­ary sys­tem under the aus­pices of the European Occu­pied Cent­ral Bank, and even con­sti­tuted a credit rat­ing arm which duly rated all fin­an­cial products BB+ or less — that is to say “speculative”.

10:04 CET: scuffles in the camp as the police are splattered with paint. Some act­iv­ists have had paint baths to make their evic­tion more col­our­ful. The police are now threat­en­ing arrests for this.

09:59 CET: police have arres­ted a cyc­list, pre­sum­ably for cyc­ling on the cracks in the pavement.

09:52 CET: the first Occu­pists have been removed from the camp.

Record­ing of the police action here.

09:47 CET: The police have gone in.

09:40 CET: police have issued a final warn­ing. A ban­ner close the the ECB states that the banks want the police to deal with the pro­test­ers quickly, before they find out the police pen­sion plan has been cut.

09:20 CET: Caesar-​style the police have con­struc­ted a double kettle around the camp, pre­vent­ing exit, but more import­antly entrance by Blockupy act­iv­ists wish­ing to join the Camp. Occu­pists have been informed any­one par­tak­ing in a sit­down protest will be arrested.

09:00 CET: the police are cur­rently hand­ing out the evic­tion order in the Camp. The medi­ation has prin­cip­ally been a plea for a vol­un­tary exit from the square.

08:30 CET: Police have announced by loud­hailer that a del­eg­a­tion from Frankfurt’s Pub­lic Order depart­ment is mak­ing its way to the Occupy Camp to attempt a new medi­ation. The pub­lic offices are not far from Willy-​Brandt Platz — about 1km due east. In response to this turn of events, a block of riot police have moved quickly from the square in the dir­ec­tion of the main rail­way station.

08:20 CET: up to about 300 people in the Occupy camp now. Reports are that the police delay may be due to a final legal appeal by a camp mem­ber. It is being repor­ted that this appeal has been dis­missed sum­mar­ily and the Occupy camp clear­ance unto 16:00 Sat­urday has been con­firmed. In response Occu­pists have begun their sit-​down protest.

08:05 CET: The 08:00 dead­line has passed and the police remain at a dis­tance. An Occu­pist is exhort­ing com­rades to peace­ful res­ist­ance, though report­ers are doing their best to pro­voke evid­ence of viol­ent intent.

07:55 CET: With a few minutes before the police dead­line for clear­ance, a group of riot police are kit­ting up.

07:15 CET: 35 – 45 police vans are parked in Willy-​Brandt Platz, along with sev­eral TV mobile units. About 150 people are in the camp at the moment, with this num­ber increas­ing as Blockupy act­iv­ists join in solid­ar­ity. The pub­lic trans­port sta­tions in the vicin­ity have been closed by the authorities.