1,000 STUDENTS PROTEST AT "SEDITION" TRIAL IN BERLIN
More than 1,000 students demonstrated at the Moabit Courthouse in West Berlin November 24 as one of their number went on trial for allegedly throwing a stone at a cop last June.
When the students tried to break through a police cordon at the courthouse, the cops turned a water cannon on then, despite freezing weather -- it was snowing at the time.
Fourteen students were arrested. Traffic was blocked around the courthouse for more than an hour.
The defendant, Fritz Teufel, 24, is being tried for "sedition." He was arrested June 2 during a demonstration against the shah of Iran. Another student, Benno Ohnesorg, was shot to death by a detective during that demonstration.
A week before Teufel went on trial the detective was acquitted of a charge of negligent homicide.
Teufel said he regarded the shah's visit as a "low comedy," in which "the public is justified in throwing eggs and tomatoes if the performance does not satisfy them." He denied that he had thrown a stone or committed any other violence. He has been held in the Moabit prison for all but four weeks since June 2.
Teufel said the contradictions of modern society became evident to him when he entered the Free University and began to read socialist literature.