Thousands demonstrate in Bavaria against corona measures

Created: 12/20/2021Updated: 12/20/2021, 12:30 AM

The largest demonstrations took place on Sunday in Nuremberg and Schweinfurt.

© - / dpa

Thousands of people demonstrated against the Corona measures in the Free State over the weekend.

The AfD parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag also blew the same horn in Nuremberg.

Nuremberg / Ansbach - Dissatisfaction with the measures to combat the corona pandemic drove around 28,000 people to the streets in the Free State at the weekend.

The biggest rush was on Sunday in Nuremberg and Schweinfurt.

But there was also a lot going on elsewhere.

In addition, there were counter-demonstrations in many municipalities at which citizens campaigned for solidarity with one another.

According to the police, more than 2,000 people came together for counter-protests in Nuremberg.

Because on the Volksfestplatz, the alliance “Students stand up” had called for a demonstration.

The police assign this alliance to the "lateral thinker" scene.

This scene is very heterogeneous and includes all political currents, said police spokesman Michael Konrad.

There were certainly people from the right-wing extremist spectrum.

Enter Weidel and Chrupalla

Demonstrators marched through the southern part of the city with posters and banners on which it was written “Duty to think instead of mandatory” or “We stand up”. Also writings such as “vaccination makes free” - which are rated as anti-Semitic by the Research and Information Center Antisemitism (RIAS) in Bavaria - could be seen. The demonstrators included people of all ages, including families with children. “The“ lateral thinkers ”were able to mobilize between 10,000 and 12,000 participants,” said Konrad.

The police also counted around 2,500 people at an AFD rally in downtown Nuremberg, at which the two parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, also appeared. Both spoke out against compulsory vaccination. "Nobody should be forced to undergo medical treatment against their will," Weidel emphasized. Not even a kilometer away, a "human chain for human rights" reminded of the corona dead. "We stand up together against agitation, disinformation and conspiracy theories," wrote Nuremberg's Mayor Marcus König (CSU) on Twitter.

In Schweinfurt, Lower Franconia, up to 3,000 people demonstrated against the Corona measures at an event that was not registered, as the police announced.

No criminal offenses were reported, but several administrative offense proceedings were initiated.

At times, safety distances were not observed.

Participants tried again and again to isolate themselves in small groups.

According to their own statements, however, the police prevented an “uncoordinated course of the meeting”.

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According to the police, more than 15,000 people protested against the corona measures on Saturday, albeit in different locations in the Free State.

On the whole, it remained peaceful, but according to the police, an officer in Traunstein was slightly injured after a participant was sent off.

In other municipalities, too, there were dismissals as well as reports of breach of the mask requirement or insults.

Protests in numerous cities

The biggest demo on Saturday was in Ansbach, a good 40 kilometers west of Nuremberg.

Since most of the 4,200 participants - estimated by the police - initially failed to comply with the order to wear at least medical masks, the officers temporarily stopped the train.

According to the police, around 2,300 critics of the measure gathered in Augsburg.

In Regensburg there were therefore around 2400 people at the top.

According to the police, 2,300 critics protested in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz.

In Bamberg, opponents of the measures gathered between 1800 and 2000, as a police spokesman said.

There were also meetings with up to a few hundred participants in other cities and municipalities in the Free State.

Counter-demonstrations also formed in many places, expressing, among other things, their solidarity with the nursing staff.

dpa