German police forcibly clear protest camp from near Tesla plant

German police broke up a protest camp on Tuesday in the woods near US electric carmaker Tesla's plant just outside of Berlin, citing violations of public safety and order.

The environmental activists have been occupying the forest area since February to protest against expansion plans at the Telsa plant, the carmaker's only European factory.

A police spokesman, Daniel Keip, said that the environmental activists had repeatedly violated regulations and committed criminal offences during their protest encampment.

He said police also could not establish contact with the assembly leaders, and could no longer assume that the protest would remain peaceful.

Police officers have been deployed at the protest camp since Monday.

A spokeswoman for the protesters, however, claimed that the police decision to clear the entire camp, home to about a dozen people, was disproportionate.

"We are furious," she said.

Initially, the activists were ordered only to temporarily leave a part of their forest camp built with tree houses due to a planned search for explosives. Authorities have long been investigating the camp on the suspicion that explosives were being kept there.

However, the Tesla opponents refused and climbed high between trees to avoid being removed by police. On Monday, police pulled six people out of tree houses because they refused to leave voluntarily.

Tesla, which is run by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to expand the site in the Berlin suburb of Grünheide to create a freight station and storage areas. The carmaker has proposed buying a wooded area from the German state of Brandenburg for this purpose.

"Talks are underway with Tesla," said a spokesman for Brandenburg's Ministry of the Environment and Forestry.