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Around 1,500 people from Germany and Poland demonstrated against the Crown restrictions in Frankfurt an der Oder, according to police. Duisburg’s “lateral thinking” initiative had called for the demonstration. “Peace” and “Freedom” were shouted in German and Polish. Hundreds of people came to the German side from Slubice on the Polish side, some waving Polish flags.
Organizers and police repeatedly asked people to keep a minimum distance and wear masks. But many visitors to the “lateral thinking” demonstration did not subscribe to it. Initially, the organizers did not have several participants. According to the police, about 150 people attended a counter-demonstration. To this end, the alliance called “There is no place for Nazis in Frankfurt (Oder)” under the slogan “Masked ball instead of crown deniers!”
The police provided masks
The organizers of the “lateral thinking” demonstration called on the participants to respect the rules of the crown and warned that the police would disrupt the demonstration. Police called in German and Polish to adhere to the guidelines. They expanded the demonstration area on the Oder promenade so that a greater distance was possible. Officers also provided masks if someone said they didn’t have one.
The “lateral thinking” initiative doubts the usefulness of the crown measures and speaks of a restriction of basic rights. The founder of “lateral thinking”, Michael Ballweg from Stuttgart, who was invited as a speaker, stated: “We are a peaceful movement in which extremism, violence, anti-Semitism and inhumane ideas have no place.”
In Slubice, on the Polish side, only four rallies with five participants each were allowed. Polish police sealed off the end of the city bridge between Frankfurt and Slubice and did not let any visitor from Germany enter without a mask. The Polish citizens without a mask were accompanied by the police.
The number of corona infections is increasing in both countries. In Poland, according to the government, around 15,000 corona infections and 599 deaths were added in 24 hours. However, Poland is one of the countries in Europe with the lowest number of tests carried out per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data from the EU health agency ECDC.
According to media reports, constitutional protections at the federal and state levels see protests against the Crown’s requirements as possible leading to a new kind of extremism. According to reports from the WDR, NDR and »Süddeutscher Zeitung«, this stems from a document that will be discussed at the conference of interior ministers starting on 9 December. Therefore, we are talking about “extremism that does not fall within the phenomena that are common in the constitutional protection group”, which means that it cannot be classified as left-wing, right-wing extremist or Islamist, for example.
Right-wing extremists, the “Reichsbürger” and conspiracy ideologues played an increasingly important role, but did not dominate the protests, according to the report: the Federal Office had already made similar statements on several occasions. However, many protesters did not distance themselves from the radicals, deny their statements or classify them as unproblematic. According to the information, several offices for the protection of the constitution of the federal states have carried out the analysis under the direction of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
60 arrests during protests in London
There were also protests against the crown restrictions in London. Police arrested more than 60 people there. “We assume this number will increase,” police tweeted in the afternoon. “We urge people to go home.”
In the current partial lockdown, citizens of England are only required to leave their homes for compelling reasons such as work, shopping or caring for relatives. Demonstrations are not one of the allowed exceptions. The participants marched, mostly without distance or masks, through central London. Their signs said, for example, “Stop controlling us” (“Stop controlling us”) or “No more blockades” (“No more blockades”). There were multiple clashes with the police.
