“A boy of 12 was hit on the head by a truncheon, a 13-year-old was struck in the face, another youngster was treated by a doctor for an injured hand.”

At 2 p.m., says the group, 40 pupils were still encircled by police, a tactic outlawed by several court rulings but still consistently used by police.

The group called on the police leaders not to set loose on youths obviously unschooled and reckless officers.

The kids had marched through the centre of the small town of Lüchow from about 9.30 a.m. to a police barracks.

“Right from the start helmet-wearing police walked with the demonstrators in a provocative manner. A unit from Magdeburg, that has been conspicuous in previous Castor transports as keen to use truncheons was deployed against the youngsters,” says a group spokesman.

“How unnecessarily aggressively and tensely the police respond is shown by an incident at the police barracks. Youths rolled a ‘nuclear barrel’ across the entrance gate.

“The policemen posted behind the gate threw the symbolic barrel back and injured one of their colleagues standing outside the gate.”

At http://de.indymedia.org/2005/11/132939.shtml randbild reports that the police were pelted with eggs and that they lost the plot when the thrown barrel hit one of them on the head.