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According to the police, around 2,000 people have moved through Berlin-Mitte since noon on Sunday to demonstrate against the Corona measures.
Very few participants maintained the mask requirement and the distance requirement. The Berlin police were on duty with 600 officers, but let the protest unfold for the time being despite violations of Corona’s requirements.
By 12 noon, the protesters had gathered at Alexanderplatz. From there, they wanted to move through the Red Town Hall and Karl-Marx-Alle to Bersarinplatz in Friedrichshain.
The situation worsened shortly after the demonstration began. When the train was initially not allowed to start because the participants were not wearing masks, some of the protesters left the crowd and headed towards Karl-Marx-Allee without a police escort.
There they met in front of the “Kosmos”, an old cinema where the world health summit was originally supposed to take place. Supporters of conspiracy theories had mobilized to protest the meeting.
The demonstration was registered with 2,500 participants. However, the police underestimated the action and, according to the Tagesspiegel, initially with emergency services in the double-digit range, the situation was chaotic.
In the early afternoon, the protest in Karl-Marx-Allee was a bit quieter, the police held back. Compliance with the distance requirement and the mask requirement was only verified in isolated cases.
Posts on Twitter show protesters blocking the way for an ambulance and a fire truck, officers did not intervene.
At the request of the Tagesspiegel, the Berlin police press office explained that they assessed the protest as “very dynamic”, but were still working on a more detailed statement. The BZ reported arrests at the demonstration, which the press office could not confirm at the moment.
Around 3:30 pm the mood changed: to prevent the police from separating, the organizers declared the demonstration over. According to a police spokeswoman, the officers entered the stage and turned off the organizers’ speakers.
However, the protesters are still resisting the police request to leave the meeting place. Riots break out and the mood is tense. Several people were arrested.
Individual counter-protesters are controlled
About 150 people, including families with children, took part in a counter-demonstration at the Weberwiese metro station near the “Kosmos”. In between, there were discussions with the “lateral thinking” protesters.
A scene our reporter observed shows how a counter-protester shows the middle finger to the “side thinkers” and is then controlled by the police. He wears a mask. Police did not approach the three unmasked protesters.
Unknown persons threw incendiary devices at the Robert Koch Institute
Originally, the World Health Summit was supposed to take place on the “Kosmos”, attended by virologist Christian Drosten and members of the Robert Koch Institute. An arson attack was carried out against the latter on Sunday night.
According to the police, several unidentified persons threw incendiary devices on a building of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin-Schöneberg. A security guard noticed the attack around 2:40 a.m.
Consequently, the attackers are said to have set flammable liquid bottles on fire and threw them at the facade. A window pane was broken and there was a fire in a room. The security guard was able to put out the fire and alerted the police. No one was injured.
Call through the Telegram messaging service
Renowned spokespersons for the “lateral thinkers”, such as otolaryngologist Bodo Schiffmann and lawyer Markus Haintz, had also mobilized against the World Health Summit. Attila Hildmann, cookbook author and anti-Semitic conspiracy ideologue, also activates his followers through the Telegram messaging service.
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In the “Kosmos” of the Karl-Marx-Alle, lectures and debates of the “World Health Summit” were originally supposed to take place. At Tagesspiegel’s request, the operators of the old cinema announced that no element of the conference program would take place. Due to the high number of infections, the meeting will be held online.
It is not clear why the “lateral thinkers” still mainly mobilized out into the cosmos. At 1 pm, at the Weberwiese metro station, a counter-rally of the mountain party will take place under the slogan “The Impferium Strikes Back”, other left-wing groups also want to take to the streets against the skeptics of the pandemic measures.
Hotel Park Inn denies rumors of cooperation with “lateral thinkers”
Meanwhile, the Radisson-Group’s Park Inn Hotel on Alexanderplatz has rejected allegations that there is cooperation between the hotel and the “lateral thinking” movement.
Information that circulated on the organization’s internal chat channels that protesters arriving from abroad would receive a discount on hotel room contingents through a special code was denied to Tagesspiegel.
Park Inn manager Jürgen Gangl said they expressly distance themselves from the rally’s objectives and will “crack down on the crown’s measures” if guests violate the crown’s measures.
