Lateral thinkers demonstration in Baden-Württemberg: pandemic deniers celebrate anniversary – politics



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A colorful crowd gathered at Cannstatter Wasen on Saturday afternoon. Women with purple highlights and dreadlocks flocked to the Stuttgart Volksfestplatz to demonstrate against the crown policy, men in dark clothes with neck tattoos, couples of retirees in functional jackets, many people in their 40s and 60s.

It is the anniversary demonstration of the “lateral thinking” initiative, which was started in April 2020 by Michael Ballweg from Stuttgart. And before Ballweg takes the stage this Saturday, a small recording is played over the loudspeaker system in which the demonstration requirements of the city of Stuttgart are communicated and at the same time interpreted in an idiosyncratic way: if someone is exempt from Wearing a mask with a certificate, this should be as easily recognizable as possible by the police. For today’s demonstration, the following applies: People with a certificate may be recognized by the police because they are not wearing a mask. Greetings in the square.

They shake hands, acquaintances embrace, there is a lively chat without leaving any distance

Almost without exception, the people here go without a mask. They are obviously convinced that the corona virus is as harmless as they evoke on their posters and that the pandemic does not exist. They shake hands, acquaintances embrace, people gather in small groups and chat animatedly without distance.

Many of the protesters have already walked for a long time. At noon, at the invitation of the “Call of the Drums” initiative, more than a thousand people gathered at Marienpatz in Stuttgart-Süd and from there walked through the most important traffic routes of the city to Bad Cannstatt. any mask in sight, at a distance was not respected either. To do this, many participants had struggled with their posters. “Singing, dancing, laughing strengthens the immune system,” he said. “Christ is my salvation, no RNA vaccine” https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/. “End of Mass Hypnosis”. And: “May our children breathe freely again.”

What the protesters live for a few hours in the Wasen on Saturday should, in their opinion, immediately apply everywhere. They call for the closure and abolition of all rules and restrictions to combat the corona pandemic.

Leaders of “lateral thinking” in Baden-Württemberg are observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Ballweg announced the event in Stuttgart as a “nationwide demonstration”. In fact, the participants apparently hail from much of the republic. There is a small group calling themselves “Coronarebellen” Düsseldorf, there are “lateral thinkers” from Darmstadt and Traunstein, flags and posters from Franconia, Munich and Berlin.

The police speak of more than 10,000 participants in the surroundings of the fairgrounds. But that might be a bit of a stretch. It happens less than in May 2020, when the “lateral thinking” with around 10,000 protesters had its largest event to date in Stuttgart, at that time with half an army of administrators observing the fulfillment of the mask and distance requirement. . Subsequently, the large-scale demonstrations moved to other cities, including Berlin, where Michael Ballweg convened a “constituent assembly” in August 2020. Meanwhile, the main figures of the “lateral thinking” initiative in Baden-Württemberg are watched by protection of the constitution.

Many problems with the posters: protesters in Cannstatter Wasen.

(Photo: Christoph Schmidt / dpa)

“Politics is no longer there for the people. It’s about distributing jobs and securing benefits,” Ballweg said on Saturday. A little later, a speaker suggested a form of government that would run without a party system.

The protection of the constitution should have listened with interest to the lawyer Ralf Ludwig, closely related to “lateral thinking”, who qualifies the mask requirement as torture and calls for resistance in the sense of the Basic Law. The state is in the process of eliminating “our order,” the separation of powers, and the enforcement of basic rights, and no court can remedy the situation. “The question for me is not whether the right of resistance is currently in force, the question is how it can be implemented,” Ludwig said. “I have developed a formula for this: Resistance means that the people of the state refuse to obey the state.” Long rest.

The lawyer speaks of an “unbearable injustice” and refers to the requirement of the mask.

Then it continues, seemingly harmless: you have to “continue to take legal action, solely to document the injustice,” but since the mask requirement, visitation bans, and curfews are “intolerable injustices,” they are null and void. .

The event is secured by hundreds of police officers and remains largely peaceful. However, according to the police, a participant in the march tried to attack the counter-protesters and wounded three officers who tried to arrest him. Furthermore, a journalist is said to have been beaten by a participant. Another reporter reported that stones were thrown at him; this is still being investigated.

In the evening, the city of Stuttgart announced that everyone walking through the city without a mask and without distance to the rallies would have to wait for a complaint. According to the police, the rapes were “evidently documented”. The mayor of Stuttgart for security, order and sport, Clemens Maier, justifies the strategy of the city and the police: “The images of Stuttgart are not beautiful, but they cannot be compared with the recent events in Brussels, Kassel or Dresden. The participants of the local rallies met in the previously defined places and moved along the marked routes “. This prevented thousands of people from flowing uncontrollably through the city.

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