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Thousands of opponents of masks and restrictions imposed against the COVID-19 epidemic demonstrated in Berlin, as new cases of coronavirus in Germany.
The protest called ‘Festival of Freedom and Peace’ gathered “free thinkers”, anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theorists and far-right sympathizers. They met at the Brandenburg Gate and it is the second act of its kind in a month, which worries the authorities.
The city council of the German capital initially banned the demonstration for “public health reasons”: the impossibility of respecting the distance of at least 1.5 meters between the protesters, who failed to comply with biosecurity measures.
Calls to violence
An earlier demonstration of this type already gathered around 20,000 people on August 1, mainly from far-right circles.
It was interrupted by the police because the protesters failed to comply with the barrier gestures.
Berlin Police Chief Barbara Slowik urged protesters to “act responsibly and reasonably” and denounced calls for violence on social media.
This protest takes place in a context of growing unrest among German public opinion over the restrictions decreed against the pandemic.
The promoter of the demonstration, Michael Ballweg, a computer entrepreneur without a political label at the head of the “Nonconformist Thinkers-711” movement, which emerged in Stuttgart, described the attempted ban on the “attack on the German Constitution” that defends the right to expression.
His supporters protest against the “dictatorship” of the measures for the new coronavirus that they consider an obstacle to their freedom. They demand the fall of the government of Angela Merkel and new elections in October 2020, that is to say a year ahead of schedule.
Meanwhile, Germany, like many European countries, has been facing an increase in infections for weeks, with an average of around 1,500 new cases reported daily.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that she foresees an “even more difficult” evolution of the pandemic in the coming months.
This deterioration in recent days, partly attributed to the return of holidays, has led the authorities to adopt new restrictive measures, such as limiting private meetings or imposing fines on those who do not wear the mask in the places where it is mandatory.
Protests of this type were also registered in London, United Kingdom and in Paris, France.
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