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Police officers block a street to Greizer Marktplatz after an unannounced demonstration
Photo: Bodo Schackow / dpa
After several, sometimes violent, marches by opponents of the Corona policy in Saxony and Thuringia, extremism researcher Oliver Decker has called for the police to take more active action against violent demonstrators.
"You have to actually get access and enforce the law," Decker said in the ARD "Morgenmagazin" with a view to "clearly isolable groups made up of those willing to use violence."
Action must also be taken against right-wing extremist structures in the background.
Decker sees "quite a broad spectrum" of participants in the corona protests.
With denial and conspiracy ideologies, there is a hinge to the extreme right, "which is widely represented and uses this opportunity to mobilize and to connect with the center of society."
Unfortunately, especially in Saxony, there is a very long tradition that the police and the judiciary were blind to the right eye, criticized the researcher. Not enough attempts have been made to prevent right-wing extremists from organizing. "It has increased the organizing ability of the extreme right very much," Decker said.
On Friday demonstrators with torches gathered in front of the private house of the Saxon Health Minister Petra Köpping (SPD). State Interior Minister Roland Wöller described the march as an "attack on democracy", "a clear signal from the rule of law is now needed," said the CDU politician of the "Bild" newspaper. »I call for quick trials in order to punish violations of the corona protective measures immediately and rigorously! Something like that shouldn't happen weeks later. ”Wöller also called for a change in federal laws in order to be able to take action against hateful posts in social networks such as Telegram, which“ have long ceased to be harmless messenger services, but platforms for hate and agitation ”.
The Dresden police are expecting a protest in front of the Saxon state parliament on Monday.
The reason: Parliament wants to decide on the determination of the epidemic situation in the Free State at noon.
The protest was called on in particular in social networks, the police said.
Saxony's emergency ordinance currently only allows stationary meetings with up to ten participants.
Thousands demonstrate in Thuringia
According to the current state corona ordinance, demonstrations with more than 35 people are also prohibited in Thuringia - at the weekend, several thousand people were still on the street in several cities.
According to the police, around 1,100 people gathered for a rally in Sonneberg on Sunday evening, some of them had torches.
There were also protests in Gotha with around 800 participants, in Bad Langensalza with 350 and in Erfurt with 130 participants.
As early as Saturday, around 2,300 people took part in unannounced protests.
In many cases, the unannounced demonstrations violated distance rules, and many participants did not wear masks.
Occasionally, bottles and fireworks flew during the actions, at least one policeman was injured, and several police vehicles were damaged.
These actions, which will be followed by more on Monday, were not registered according to the police.
However, they were expected after calls on social networks - the police were in action with a large number.
"You don't have to be a prophet to foresee a collapse of the hospitals in Thuringia if you can't get the situation under control," said Jena's regulatory affairs officer Benjamin Koppe.
Together with Saxony, Thuringia is the state with the highest seven-day incidence with over 1000.
mrc / AFP
