At least 200,000 at anti-right-wing demonstrations in German cities
At least 200,000 people gathered in Berlin, Freiburg and Augsburg on Saturday for demonstrations against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the far right, police and organizers said.
In Berlin, total strangers locked hands outside the historic Reichstag parliament building, forming a human chain. Police said 150,000 had gathered there on Saturday afternoon.
“We are the human firewall,” a voice echoed from the stage. Participants showed their support for democracy and tolerance and said they are against hatred and the far-right AfD.
The organizers, an alliance of civil society organizations called Hand in Hand, spoke of 300,000 participants.
In several other cities, there were once again an unusually large number of people taking to the streets on Saturday: about 30,000 in Freiburg, about 25,000 in Augsburg, about 10,000 in Krefeld, according to police information. There were also other rallies reported in other locations across the country.
"We want to set an example for solidarity and that we are against discrimination. And that we think it's great when a society with diversity instead of uniformity continues to exist in Germany," said 36-year-old Serkan Bingöl, a Berliner of Turkish background with a German passport and secondary school teacher, who had come with a group of refugees.
Berlin native Claudia Kirchert, who came to the Reichstag building with her daughter, said she wanted to do something about the feeling of powerlessness by participating in the large group. “I probably wouldn’t have gone to such a big demonstration a year ago.”
Participants hope to send a signal to the AfD and right-wing populists that people disagree with their stance.
“I think we kept our mouths shut for too long,” another protester, Patrick Stein, said.
Among the people who took to the stage to speak were many young people, some from migrant backgrounds. There were also many middle-aged, middle-class people in the crowd, braving the rain.
Several speakers called on the democratic parties to oppose the shift to the right and to counter right-wing demands and narratives.
The AfD has been polling well in recent months amid frustration and infighting in the three-party coalition government in Berlin.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the numerous planned demonstrations against right-wing extremism this weekend as a "strong sign" in favour of democracy and the German Basic Law, as the constitution is known.
"Whether in Eisenach, Homburg or Berlin: in small and large cities across the country, many citizens are coming together to demonstrate against forgetting, against hatred and agitation - this weekend too," the Social Democrat (SPD) politician wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday.
For some weeks now, tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets all over Germany to protest against right-wing extremism prompted by a recent meeting of extremists in Potsdam outside Berlin where the concept of "remigration" was discussed, namely deporting large numbers of people of foreign origin, even under duress.
