Berlin musicians protest highway expansion

Members of the music action group Lebenslaute on Thursday protested against road expansion by playing music and occupying a highway construction site in Germany's capital.

The group — which says it combines music with social action — staged its impromptu concert in protest of German Transport Ministry's expansion of the A100 highway.

What did the group do?

The protest movement, whose name means "life sounds," said it had occupied the site near Berlin's Treptow Park and begun to play music.

Organizers said construction work was stopped immediately after the start of the concert — under the motto "make music, not concrete."

They played compositions by Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Dmitri Shostakovich and Rio Reiser, among others.

Lebenslaute said some 20 of the building workers "gathered and listened to the music in a relaxed manner."

The group held a small meeting about the need for a change in transport policy. They left the site voluntarily a few hours after arriving.

Police who were present at the event said they did not intervene to stop the protest, but had filed a charge against the leader of the action.

'Petrified transport policy'

The group says the government must radically shift the focus of its transport strategy away from highways and private vehicles. It accuses the government of having a "petrified transport policy" that has not adapted to the threat of climate change.

For later in the day, the initiative also called for a musical blockade on the A103 in the Berlin district of Friedenau.

Lebenslaute says it has been "gathering annually since 1986." As well as protesting transport policy, it also stages actions at military training areas, inside the halls of airports to prevent deportations and at nuclear plants.

rc/nm (AFP, epd, dpa)