German police on Wednesday used water cannon and pepper spray to disperse thousands of unmasked protesters demonstrating in central Berlin against government measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.
A total of 365 arrests were made and 10 police officers injured as about 5,000 people gathered at the Brandenburg Gate after the German government banned rallies outside parliament because of fears of violence.
After repeated warnings for the crowd to put on face coverings went unheeded, police spent several hours trying to clear the demonstration.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Protesters threw bottles, stones and fireworks at police and attacked them with pepper spray, police said, prompting officers to “use physical force and pepper spray, and arrest some of the attackers.”
The demonstration mirrored similar protests seen across Europe against restrictions opponents see as a violation of their civil rights, despite government warnings about the need to stop the spread of infections.
Organizers in Berlin accused the government of trying to establish a “dictatorship” with shutdown measures that were tightened this month.
Demonstrators carried posters showing German political leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in prison garb and emblazoned with the word “guilty.”
Achim Ecker, a demonstrator in his 50s who traveled to Berlin from neighboring Brandenburg state, said the government was exaggerating the dangers posed by the pandemic.
“We don’t need emergency measures,” he said. “I believe in our own immune systems.”
As protests erupted outside, inside parliament lawmakers passed amendments granting state governments formal powers to limit social contact to help halt the spread of the virus, putting the shutdown measures on a firmer legal footing.
In online chatrooms, activists have compared the measures to the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s government dictatorial powers.
The comments drew outrage, with Germany Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas writing on Twitter: “Those who make such disgraceful comparisons mock the victims of National Socialism and show they have learned nothing from history.”
Merkel’s spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer told a government news conference that the measures simply provide a “temporary legal basis for government action ... which the parliament itself can change at any time.”
The German Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community on Tuesday said that it had been informed by security services that protesters intended to block access to the Reichstag and Bundesrat buildings, justifying the ban.
The Bundestag security force had warned lawmakers that “demonstrators from politically radical and even violent groups” were expected to take part in Wednesday’s protests with “attacks” possible.
The Robert Koch Institute for disease control yesterday reported the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Germany increased by 22,609 from Wednesday’s total to 855,916. The reported death toll rose by 251 to 13,370, the tally showed.
Additional reporting by Reuters
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS