Protesters clash with police in Berlin shutdown demo

BERLIN: German police used water cannon and pepper spray to disperse thousands of unmasked protesters at a demonstration in central Berlin against government measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.

A total of 365 arrests were made and ten police officers injured as around 5,000 activists gathered at the city’s 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.

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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. 

Organisers 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 Chancellor Angela Merkel in prison garb and emblazoned with the word “guilty”.

Achim Ecker, a demonstrator in his 50s who travelled to Berlin from neighbouring Brandenburg state, said the government was exaggerating the dangers posed by the pandemic.

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“We don’t need emergency measures,” he said. “I believe in our own immune systems.” 

As protests erupted outside, MPs 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 Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeting: 

“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 press conference that the measures simply provide a “temporary legal basis for government action ...  which the parliament itself can change at any time”.