MUNICH | Several thousand opponents of restrictive measures supposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated again in several cities in Germany, but also in Warsaw on Saturday.
• Read also: All developments in the COVID-19 pandemic
In Munich (south-west) alone, where a national demonstration of this kind was organized for the first time, 10,000 people were counted by the police, more than the 5,000 announced before the event by the organizers.
The main rally had to be halted just under an hour after its start because the rules of distancing were not followed and participants were not wearing masks.
Other German cities have also known such gatherings as in Hanover (center), where at least 1000 people have been registered, as in Wiesbaden (west).
As in early and late August, during large demonstrations in Berlin bringing together some 40,000 people, the demonstrators, mostly unmasked despite an order from the city of Munich demanding the opposite, denounced the measures taken by the German government to combat the epidemic of the new coronavirus.
“I am against these anti-coronavirus measures because other virologists are not listened to, with very biased media coverage,” Uwe Schnetter told AFP.
“We no longer have a fundamental law [Constitution allemande, NDLR], but a law that protects against infections, and under cover of this law, we are being taken away all our fundamental freedoms! ”, worries for her part Eva, a protester in her fifties wearing a movement t-shirt “Querdenken” (“Non-conformist thinkers”).
Appeared in Stuttgart (south-west), this movement has been organizing demonstrations against restrictions linked to COVID-19 since mid-April, a few days before Germany, which has never experienced strict containment, begins to soften them.
Its supporters bring together a motley mix of people calling themselves “free thinkers”, anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy activists, and even far-right sympathizers.
German protests on Saturday have so far gone without incident, as police are on the lookout to avoid further outbursts.
At the end of August, during the previous national demonstration in the German capital, several hundred protesters had forced a police roadblock to climb the steps of the Reichstag in Berlin, where the deputies sit, and try to enter there, creating a wave of shock in Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday “to understand” that some “have difficulty” in the face of these restrictions, saying that “everyone is free to openly criticize the government’s decision […] during peaceful demonstrations ”.
“This is a great asset of our constitutional state: a state which does not suppress freedom of opinion, public debate and participation, but which guarantees it, which is why many people around the world envy us”, she quipped in response to demonstrators regularly speaking of “censorship”.
An equivalent demonstration, but smaller in size, also gathered several hundred people in Warsaw in the early afternoon.
Organized in particular by an association opposing a “Stop-NOP” vaccination obligation, the event “Ending the pandemic! Enough lies! ” opened in front of the seat of the Polish Parliament. The demonstrators then had to pass through the center of the Polish capital to the headquarters of public television TVP, which they accuse of lying about the pandemic.
The demonstrators notably chanted “Enough lies, enough masks”, or “Freedom, freedom!”. They carried signs like “Bill Gates in Prison”, “COVID 1984, Human Rights”, “The Propaganda Virus”, or “We will no longer allow a new one. lockdown! ”. They also demanded the resignation of the Polish government.
Participants also observed a minute’s silence in memory of those who died “as a result of the blockade of medical services” due to the pandemic, according to them.