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Protest against corona measures in Hamburg (February 2021)
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The "lateral thinker" scene is moving into the focus of the protection of the constitution in Hamburg as well.
As Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) announced, the secret service of the city-state classifies the local offshoot "lateral thinking 40" as a suspected case.
As a result, the group can be observed in the future using so-called intelligence means, for example by secretly monitoring people.
The "lateral thinkers" have established themselves as collecting basins for so-called corona deniers.
The founder is the businessman Michael Ballweg.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg had already classified the "lateral thinkers" as an object of observation in December, and Bavaria followed in mid-March.
The intelligence agents there took part of the "lateral thinker" scene as a "collective observation object".
In addition to "lateral thinking 40", Hamburg also classifies the group "Hamburg stands up" as a suspected case, in which corona deniers also gather.
Senator Grote emphasized that it was not about discrediting criticism against the corona policy.
"Critical attitudes towards corona measures are not an issue for the protection of the constitution." Take only those protesters "who reject democratically elected governments or members of parliament as a whole and aggressively oppose them."
The “unprecedented challenges posed by the corona pandemic” are currently promoting the “emergence of a new type of extremism”.
Radical conspiracy ideologues could "pose a serious challenge to our democracy."
The common categories of constitutional activists are left-wing extremism, right-wing extremism and Islamism.
Last year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution warned against a "new form of extremism" with a view to corona protests.
The head of the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Torsten Voss, said in a SPIEGEL interview in November: “More and more protesters are questioning the state as such with their conspiracy stories.
A constitutional protection officer is of course alarmed. "
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