Erfurt, Dec13, Germany (dpa/GNA) – Protesters have clashed with police in several German towns and cities, at demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions over the weekend that left multiple police officers injured, according to police.
At one protest in the town of Greiz in central Germany, 14 police officers were injured after an estimated 1,000 people gathered in the town on Saturday, police said on Sunday. Protesters tried to break through a police cordon, after which the police used pepper spray.
In video posted on Twitter, protesters could be seen wrestling with the police in an attempt to break through the cordon.
A dpa photographer reported an aggressive atmosphere.
Two of the injured police officers were deemed unfit for duty, the police said, while one injured officer was briefly hospitalized.
The police said they had identified 207 of the protesters, issued 108 orders to leave the area and initiated 44 criminal proceedings. A further 47 proceedings for civil offenses were under way.
Police also broke up an unregistered protest organized by the “Querdenken” (Lateral Thinking) movement in the western German city of Hamm on Saturday, which at its peak attracted 550 participants.
According to the police, the march broke numerous rules and a criminal case has been opened against the protest’s alleged leader for violating rules on public assembly and for insulting police officers.
Police officers were also attacked during a protest in the Saxon town of Bennewitz on Sunday morning, according to police. Two police officers were slightly injured, as were two demonstrators, though the protest attracted just 25 people, which nevertheless contravened current Covid-19 restrictions.
In the south-western city of Reutlingen on Saturday, about 1,500 people attended a rally “For freedom, truth and self-determination,” police said. The protesters ignored police instructions that they should wear protective face masks, so the officers broke up the rally. However, some attendees continued to march, and a handful set off flares and fireworks.
When the police attempted to break up the group, participants broke through the police line by force, after which the officers used pepper spray and batons to disperse the crowd. In the course of the evening, several criminal proceedings were initiated for assaulting police officers, insulting police officers and for attempted assault. Police ordered about 100 people to leave the area.
Some 1,500 people gathered in Gotha in Thuringia for an unregistered protest against coronavirus measures. A bottle was lobbed at an officer, police said early Monday, but no-one was injured.
Some protesters were said to be displaying insignia of unconstitutional organizations. Other demonstrators violated the hygiene protection measures, sometimes did not wear masks and did not keep minimum distances.
Police broke up an unauthorized protest in Plauen in Saxony and took down the personal details of more than 200 people.
Experts warned of an increasing radicalization of protesters.
North Rhine Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Raul said right-wing extremists were increasingly hijacking Covid-19 protests for their own purposes.
He warned that “anti-democratic” and “unconstitutional tones” were increasingly creeping in. It was time for all democrats to say “Enough, there is a limit being reached here,” Raul told the Bild tabloid podcast “The right questions” on Sunday evening.
Thuringia Interior Minister Georg Maier said that a small minority is becoming “louder and louder, more and more radical.”
“We as a society have to find a very clear language,” Maier said in the podcast. The minister criticized calls to publish the addresses of politicians “so that they no longer have a good life” as “perfidious and unbearable.”
A further 100 people took part in a prohibited demonstration in Germany’s financial hub Frankfurt on Saturday, which was quickly broken up by the authorities, according to police.
In Stuttgart, many protesters broke health regulations during four protests on Saturday. Police reported several hundred protesters had assembled and formed a human chain in the city. The police said on Sunday that they were now investigating 12 people for their actions.
Approximately 2,500 protesters took to the streets of Freiburg in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg on Saturday, police said, adding that there were several violations of public assembly rules and many participants refusing to wear masks.
GNA