Corona protest in Berlin: police prohibit demo and let it go anyway

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Police cordon off Alexanderplatz before the start of the demo (25.10.2020)

Photo: Paul Zinken / dpa

In protest against the state corona restrictions, demonstrators took to the streets again on Sunday in Berlin.

The police spoke of around 2000 people who gathered on Alexanderplatz in the Mitte district.

The elevator for 2500 participants was registered.

The police spoke of a dynamic situation.

"There was largely neither the minimum distance nor the obligation to cover the mouth and nose," tweeted the police.

However, these were conditions.

Therefore, the applicant for the demonstration was prohibited from starting an elevator.

Then the situation on Alexanderplatz became confusing.

A reporter from the dpa news agency reported that demonstrators broke out of the crowd and walked around away from Alexanderplatz without police escort.

In an announcement by the police it was also said that the event on Alexanderplatz had been canceled by the organizer.

It was observed that police officers also acted against individual participants - for example, fixing them on the ground or carrying them away.

"We don't want these pictures"

Most of the participants, however, were allowed to walk unmolested by the police on the planned demo route on Karl-Marx-Allee, even though these people violated the conditions of the demonstration.

When asked, the head of operations told SPIEGEL: "Of course we could have stopped them. But we don't want these pictures."

After the lateral thinking demonstration in Berlin at the end of August, there had already been a lot of criticism of the police.

You could not enforce compliance with the infection protection rules - and did not prevent a previously announced storm of the stairs of the Reichstag.

Once again, the demonstrators included families with children and the elderly.

They carried protest banners, and some were out with drums and whistles.

On Alexanderplatz and Karl-Marx-Allee, the demonstrators shouted, among other things, "We are here, we are loud because we are being robbed of our freedom" and "We are the people".

The demo prohibited by the police ends around 4 p.m.

On Sunday afternoon, the demonstrators then moved as planned to the Kosmos event center, where the "World Health Summit" was originally supposed to take place.

Due to the increasing number of infections, the conference will only be held online.

All speeches and debates would be held digitally, said a spokeswoman for the summit.

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will speak at the three-day health summit.

The Gifel is to be officially opened on Sunday evening.

Around 4 p.m., the demonstration was ended by the applicant, as the Berlin police announced on Twitter.

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hda / dpa