After protests from the milieu of lateral thinkers and corona skeptics at the weekend, there was another demonstration in Berlin on Monday. The official motto was “Dare more democracy”, 500 participants were registered. The police counted 4800 participants in the afternoon, and there were probably more at the closing event in front of the Reichstag.
Speakers said that the demonstration would go down in history, they called for the abolition of parties, free mandates in the Bundestag and a new constitution.
The scene itself dubbed its procession the “media march”; it passed several media companies, including ARD, ZDF, Springer, “taz” and the Tagesspiegel. The media are said to have been brought into line for the scene. Demonstrators chanted: “Lying Press” and “Gap Press”.
The demonstration was peaceful until the evening. One person was temporarily arrested for insulting the deceased. The police were on duty with several hundred officers.
The occasion was the second anniversary of the first nationwide lateral thinking demonstration. On August 1, 2020, 20,000 people took part in Berlin. The scene has now announced a whole week of protests until Saturday.
[If you want to have all the latest news live on your mobile phone, we recommend our app, which you can download here for Apple and Android devices.]
The conspiracy ideological references are striking. Furthermore, there are demonstrations against an alleged compulsory vaccination. Several participants in the demonstration called for the release of Michael Ballweg, the founder of the “lateral thinking” movement, from custody. The Stuttgart public prosecutor is investigating the 47-year-old for fraud and money laundering.
In speeches, Ballweg was equated with victims of the Nazi dictatorship, and criminal prosecution was equated with political persecution. Participants relativized the Shoah.
At the same time, the elevator was directed against the German support of Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression and criticized the alleged warmongering of the West.
The mobile advice against right-wing extremism (MBR) spoke of a “regionalization of the protests, which recently had little impact on the outside and mostly only mobilized a hard core”.
