Dissatisfied with the policy of the German government in the field of combating the pandemic COVID-19 went to protest, despite police bans on a number of such actions.
Several thousand people took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday to protest government measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Police previously banned nine reported similar demonstrations, including a rally by Initiative Querdenken. Because of this, many participants in the event at first walked the streets without a specific goal, the agency dpa writes. At the same time, some groups of those gathered moved around the city, accompanied by the police. Parts of the government quarter were closed off.
According to the press service of the Berlin police, up to 2,000 people were deployed by the police to maintain order on the streets, including thanks to colleagues who arrived for this purpose from other federal states. In addition, helicopters were used to observe the actions from the air.
According to the newspaper Die Welt, 36 arrests were carried out in Berlin by the evening of 28 August. The event was not without clashes between protesters and police and attacks on law enforcement agencies. One police officer was injured. When the protesters tried to break down the barriers blocking their way to the government block, the police used tear gas.
According to the observations of journalists, most of the protesters moved around the city without masks and did not observe social distance.
Four urgent complaints were reportedly filed with the Administrative Court against the ban on demonstrations on the weekend of 28 and 29 August. Three of them were rejected, one was satisfied. Thus, the city authorities allowed the organizer to hold the action with the expected number of participants in 500 people.
On the same day, about 4,000 people, accompanied by the sounds of techno music, staged an action in Berlin called “Procession of Love”. According to the organizers of this event, its goal was “to give all residents of the city a feeling of take-off after the pandemic and to show how multifaceted the culture of Berlin is.” At the same time, as noted by the dpa agency, not everyone wore masks at this event.
Germany says this:
Vaccinated, ill and tested people will be allowed on trains and planes
In Germany, almost 60 percent of the population is fully vaccinated
.