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In Berlin, the scene of the largest of these protests, the demonstration was interrupted by the police for neglecting protection measures.
In London, a thousand protesters, gathered in Trafalgar Square, called for “an end to medical tyranny.”
In Paris, 200 to 300 people protested the mandatory mask. Sophie, a 50-year-old Parisian, said she took to the streets because she was “in favor of freedom of choice.”
“I am a citizen who opposes freedom measures that have no medical justification,” she said.
A similar demonstration is also planned in the Swiss city of Zurich.
In Berlin, the police ordered the demonstration to disperse, shortly after it started, at the mythical Brandenburg Gate.
“Most of them did not maintain the minimum distance (of safety between the people), despite the repeated demands” from the forces of order, the police reported, stating that “there is no other possibility than to dissolve the demonstration.”
After the police announcement, many protesters remained in the place, sitting on the ground in the middle of the street, shouting “resistance”, or “we are the people”. slogan far right, while others sang the national anthem. One group threw rocks and bottles at the police. Two people were arrested.
Protest against Merkel
“Free thinkers”, anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theories and supporters of the extreme right joined in this event, which they called the “festival of freedom and peace.”
From an early age, people of all ages took to the streets, including families with children.
“Merkel must go,” was one of the frequent shouts from the crowd.
“I am not a supporter of the extreme right, I am here to defend our fundamental freedoms,” said Stefan, a 43-year-old Berliner with a shaved head, wearing a gray T-shirt with the message “Think help!”
A similar demonstration gathered some 20,000 people in Berlin on August 1, most of them supporters of the extreme right. In this case, the act was also dispersed by the police for the same reasons.
“We are here to say: we must be careful! With or without the coronavirus crisis, we must defend our freedoms,” Christina Holz, a 22-year-old student, who wore a T-shirt calling for the release of Julien Assange, told AFP. , the founder of WikiLeaks, imprisoned in the UK.
Initially, the German city council banned the demonstration on Saturday for “public health issues”: the impossibility of respecting the distance of at least 1.5 meters between the protesters.
The administrative court agreed with the organizers, ruling that “the existence of an immediate danger to public safety” was not a valid reason, but it did establish the conditions for the march.
Growing malaise
This protest occurs in a context of growing concern for German public opinion, due to the restrictions imposed in the face of the pandemic, although they have not been as draconian as in Spain or Italy. Both countries were much more affected by covid-19.
The promoter of the demonstration, Michael Ballweg, a computer entrepreneur who claims not to have a political label and is at the head of the “Non-conformist Thinkers-711” movement in Stuttgart, described the attempted ban as an “attack on the German constitution” . He maintains that the country’s Charter defends the right of expression.
His supporters protest against the “dictatorship” of the measures against the new coronavirus, claiming that they are an obstacle to their freedom. They demand the fall of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the holding of new elections in October 2020, that is, one year ahead of schedule.
Several left-wing organizations have also called for counter-demonstrations.
Like many European countries, Germany has seen an increase in infections for weeks, with an average of around 1,500 new cases of infections reported daily. On Saturday, the RKI monitoring institute reported 1,479 new infections in the past 24 hours.
The covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 838,271 deaths worldwide since the virus appeared in December 2019, according to an AFP balance published on Saturday.
Across the planet, 24.8 million cases of contagion were diagnosed by the new coronavirus.
