Under the slogan "Festival of freedom and peace", several thousand people gathered this Saturday in the historic center of Berlin to protest against the restrictions imposed by federal and regional authorities to fight against the pandemic and against the mandatory use of masks in public transport and indoors. The massive protest was about to turn the historic center of Berlin into a battlefield, but the blood did not reach the Spree River after the authorities ordered the dissolution of the massive demonstration after observing that they did not wear masks, nor did they respect the norm of the physical distance.
According to the police, some 30,000 people, including anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theorists and far-right sympathizers, gathered at the Brandenburg Gate and marched through the center of Berlin for much of the day shouting anti-government slogans and wearing emblems that were used in the Prussian monarchy. They also displayed banners demanding the resignation of the Federal Government, as well as the end of masks and the daily restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The posters read "Stop the Crown Madness" and "End the Crown Dictatorship." Over and over the crowd chanted "Resistencia" and "Somos el pueblo".
Some protesters carried photos of the center-right Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the Social Democratic Vice Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the head of the Bavarian Government, the conservative Markus Söder, all in prisoner clothes and with the addition of "guilty".
The police deployed more than 3,000 officers to prevent clashes between the protesters and the anti-fascist counter-marches that were organized. The agents completely isolated the neighborhood where the Reichstag and the Chancellery are located and took out water cannons to avoid possible clashes in the heart of the city. Far-right leaders and extremists of all stripes were seen in the protest, demanding Merkel's resignation and the calling of new elections this year.
Despite the huge media coverage of the protests, the people who decided to march on Saturday only represent a minority in one country, according to the latest public television poll this week. 60% of those surveyed support the government's measures and 28% consider that they should be even more strict. Only 10% think they are exaggerated, in a country where there has never been confinement and you don't have to wear a mask on the street. Contagions in Germany rose again from the end of July, but in the last week they seem to have stabilized, with an average of 1,200 daily in a country of 83 million inhabitants.
Carsten Haffer, a 52-year-old industrial engineer, assured that he does not belong to any political current, but that he decided to participate to defend fundamental rights. "There is no freedom of association or expression," he said on the way to the Berlin march. “The virus is not a pandemic. It is only dangerous for people over 80 years old and with previous illnesses ”, he estimated, ignoring the evidence to the contrary.
At his side, Jörg Helfen, a 56-year-old machine tool technician, accused the diagnostic tests of not being “reliable”. They are unable to identify the virus. It is an invention of Drösten [Christian, the renowned German virologist who invented the tests] on the computer ”. Helfen pointed out that the policy to fight the coronavirus "has brought many problems for workers" and that "people who are really sick do not have a bed in the hospital." "Why is a coronavirus patient more important than a cancer patient?" He asked.
The two men warned that the protest marks the beginning of what some protesters have already dubbed a "revolution." “This is not going to stop until we overthrow the government. Hopefully this will also encourage people in other countries to take to the streets, ”Haffer said.
The demonstration, which was called by the Querdenker 711 organization, which was born in the city of Stuttgart, had been banned last Wednesday by the Berlin government. The prohibition argued that there were no guarantees to comply with the security measures that are in force, such as maintaining a distance of at least 1.5 meters and the use of masks. This led to a strong controversy surrounding the fundamental right to protest and was passionately criticized by the Alternative for Germany party and also by the tabloid newspaper Bild .
The administrative court of Berlin ended up agreeing with the organizers by ruling that "the existence of an immediate danger to public safety" was not a valid reason, but it made respect for the current measures as a condition. This Saturday, the police, after observing how the protesters marched without respecting the measures and verifying an atmosphere that could culminate with acts of violence, announced that the marches and the central act that was to take place on 17 de Junio Avenue should be dissolved, as it also happened last August 1. The reason: the violation of the rules on distance and masks. "All the measures taken so far have not led to compliance with the conditions," the police said through loudspeakers and also via Twitter.