The German police today dispersed a march of thousands of people in Berlin against the coronavirus restrictions. The troops acted because the protesters they did not respect social distancing and came out without masks on the street.
The convocation had brought together 20 thousand people. They toured the Mitte neighborhood and were concentrated in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate waiting for more protesters when the police ordered the organizers to end the protest, which was scheduled to last several hours.
“Unfortunately we have no other option: we have spoken with the leader of the demonstration and have informed him that this meeting will be dissolved by the Police,” said the institution of the German capital on its Twitter account before proceeding to the dispersion of the event. Total, about 2,000 police officers were deployed.
The demonstration was a compendium of deniers, nostalgic for the Third Reich with Nazi flags and people in T-shirts with allusions to conspiracy theories. The attendees carried large posters with various messages, including “We are the people.” Other banners called for the resignation of the German government and an end to the restrictions.
With a megaphone, a security man called to deconcentrate. EFE
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Strictly speaking, the march was banned by the Berlin regional government before taking place on the grounds that in a previous call the protesters had not respected measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, such as masks and distancing.
However, the organizers appealed the decision to a court that authorized the protest but ordered them to ensure compliance with sanitary standards, something that was not seen in the demonstration this Saturday.
The march was made in the middle of a spike in coronavirus infections in much of Europe, including Germany, where contagions returned to the levels of May and even April. Today, the German health authorities announced 1,479 new cases in the last 24 hours. Yesterday 1571 had been announced, while last Saturday more than 2,000 cases were reported for the first time since the end of April.
The highest number of new infections reported daily was more than 6,000 in early April. After registering about a thousand daily infections in May, the number tended to fall, but has risen again since the end of July. Germany totals 240,986 infections and 9289 deaths to date.
