Anonymous Attacks Websites of Germany and Frankfurt in Solidarity with Blockupy Protest

Anonymous has attacked and taken offline websites belonging to the information office of the federal government of Germany and of the city of Frankfurt to protest against police breaking up an Occupy Frankfurt camp in the German financial capital.

The demonstration, which was part of a four-day "Blockupy" protest against capitalism and austerity measures, was also removed by police in Frankfurt.

The hacking collective retaliated with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the official website of Germany, which was taken down for a few hours. The official website of the city of Frankfurt and other affiliated sites were also unavailable.

The attack was announced by anon AnonyINTRA on Twitter: "Breaking news: Now I just made crash the server of deutschland.de #whoops #Frankfurt"

"Tango WORLDWIDE down: deutschland.de - #Frankfurt #Blockupy," he tweeted after the assault.

Anonymous released a statement on Pastebin explaining why it launched the cyber attack.

"The Blockupy action days were prohibited by the city of Frankfurt," the statement said. "The city administration deliberately violated the article 8 of our constitution to free exercise of demonstrations/protests."

"The peaceful protest is criminalised for no reason," it added. "While Blockupy blocked the streets of Frankfurt, we are launching a DDoS attack on the site www.frankfurt.de."

"Frankfurt.de TangoDown by #Anonymous | Hintergrund: pastebin.com/XLEsLns3 | #Blockupy | FFm hätte mal den Art. 8 GG lesen sollen" tweeted Anonymous RLP.

Protesters in Frankfurt said they are upset over the misery that European governments are causing their citizens with their responses to the ongoing financial crisis.

As Germany's banking capital prepared for a four-day conference on monetary policy, authorities are braced for a series of anti-capitalist protest rallies.

Police officers broke up another Occupy Frankfurt camp on 17 May outside the European Central Bank in the city. The demonstration, which saw around 100 "indignants" camp outside the bank since October, was the longest continuous protest in Europe.

Demonstrations with as many as 40,000 people are expected to besiege the city until 19 May, leading police to clear the camp in order to set up security around the bank.

Police detained 150 demonstrators for defying a protest ban that was order by a court earlier in the week.