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Police operation in Berlin: The officers report around 500 arrests
Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
They were not deterred by official bans: Thousands of people demonstrated against the Corona measures in Berlin.
Police officers are said to have been attacked, barriers ignored and in some cases overrun.
According to a police spokesman, around 500 people have been arrested or temporarily detained to record personal details.
According to the RBB, there were around 5,000 demonstrators in total.
A rally of the initiative “lateral thinking 711” was originally planned on Straße des 17. Juni, for which around 22,500 participants had been registered.
On Saturday evening, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court confirmed a ban previously imposed by the police on a total of 13 partial events.
Among other things, because "the hygiene concept clearly raises doubts about the willingness of the applicant to work effectively towards compliance with the infection protection requirements."
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Evictions, irritant gas, arrests, water cannons
The protesters took advantage of the fact that not all demos of the day were banned.
A car parade at the Olympic Square was approved because it was able to present a portable hygiene concept due to the spatial separation of the participants.
Around 2000 pedestrians then gathered at the same place from Sunday lunchtime.
The police rated this as a "prohibited substitute event," and initially sent off and notices were issued.
Sometimes people sat down on the street.
Whistles could be heard, loud shouts such as "Peace, Freedom, Democracy" and police vehicles with sirens.
A police helicopter was also in use in the air.
In the further course of the day the mood of the demonstrations escalated again and again.
In several places, including in Charlottenburg, City West and at the Victory Column, there were sometimes violent clashes.
Videos that are shared on the short message service Twitter are said to prove the attacks.
According to a police spokesman, the forces in the Westend stopped a coach and secured technology.
The groups had come together again and again across the city - the »aggression potential« varied.
Police officers were also injured - but he did not give an exact number or other details.
"We were met with violence, so that colleagues also had to use violence," police spokesman Thilo Cablitz told the rbb.
Participants in the demonstrations are also said to have threatened journalists, report the "Berliner Morgenpost" and the German Union of Journalists (dju) in ver.di.
The officers first used pepper spray and batons, later water cannons hit the big star.
The protest there was only resolved after several loudspeaker announcements and threats to use water cannons, whereupon the crowd moved further south.
According to rbb, the police were hardly to be seen there in the late afternoon.
Traffic chaos broke out on Kurfürstenstrasse.
Shortly before 5 p.m. the train reached Kreuzberg, according to Tagesspiegel employee Christoph Kluge in a "party mood".
Very few of the participants wore masks, and distances were also not kept.
According to their own information, 2,250 police officers were assigned to work around the demonstrations.
"We have been preparing for a very exhausting mission this entire weekend," said the police spokesman.
When asked about the tactics of the police and why people had managed to assemble, he said: The police are required to act with a sense of proportion.
"We cannot arbitrarily control every person now, for example on Pariser Platz."
"An almost unbearable level of arrogance"
The spokesman for the initiative »lateral thinking 711«, Michael Ballweg, said that his initiative accepted the ban on the demonstration.
But freedom cannot be forbidden.
»People are now independently standing up for their basic rights.
And the meetings take place anyway. ”At the same time, Ballweg criticized the ban and said that a coordinated meeting with conditions, files and de-escalation teams would have been safer.
In an internal "emergency plan", the initiative called for people to come to Berlin even in the event of a ban.
Exactly a year ago there was a major demonstration against the Corona measures in Berlin on August 1st.
Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) had previously attacked the "lateral thinker" scene in an interview with the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung".
»If practically all experts around the world say that Corona is dangerous and vaccination helps, then who actually has the right to say: But I'm smarter?
For me that is an almost unbearable level of arrogance. "
bbr / sem / dpa / afp
