Hundreds of thousands of people they protested this sunday in Germany in against the far-right AfD party, a mobilization of a magnitude rarely seen that began a week ago. The demonstrations occur after a mass expulsion plan for immigrants that the extreme right proposes.
Since Friday, nearly a hundred demonstrations have been held throughout the country, bringing together more than 1.4 million people in total.according to the organization Friday for Future and the citizen alliance Campact, which are among the organizers of the movement.
Massive demonstrations in Berlin and Hamburg
In Berlin, In the middle of the darkness of the night, the light points of thousands of protesters’ cell phones pointed towards the sky, drawing a trail. According to the police, cited by RBB radio, 100,000 people attended that march, while the organizers claim that 350,000 did so.
And in Munich, in the south, the protest against training Alternative for Germany (AfD) It was so massive that the march had to be interrupted. Police estimated that about 100,000 people attended the march, the largest yet.
Some of the participants carried signs with the phrases “Nazis out” or “Never again, it’s time” written on them.
Nearly 250,000 people had already demonstrated on Saturday in dozens of cities across the country, according to estimates from the ARD network.
The extreme right proposes the mass expulsion of immigrants
The concentrations have taken place since the research media Corrective will report on January 10 of a secret meeting in Potsdamnearly Berlin, where a mass expulsion of immigrants projectasylum seekers and “unassimilated” German citizens.
Several members of AfD They participated in said event, which Interior Minister Nancy Faeser compared it to the “horrible Wannsee conference”in 1942, in which the Nazi regime planned the extermination of European Jews.
“The Correctiv investigations, which have been compared to the Wannsee conference, truly terrified everyone,” said one participant in the march. Berlin, Benedikt Bogner, employee of an NGO.
“Those who may not yet know whether they are going to vote or not AfD, after these demonstrations they can no longer do it,” said Katrin Delrieux, 53, who went to the protest for his three children, “so that they do not grow up with a government” of the extreme right.
The party, which entered the Parliament In 2017, it is the second force with the most voting intentions at the national level (around 22%) according to surveys.
Protests in forty cities in Germany
The announcement on Sunday it reached about forty cities German. In Dresden, Saxony’s capital and AfD stronghold, police reported a “huge number of participants.”
In Cologne, The organizers put the crowd at 70,000 people, while in Bremen, Local police counted 45,000 protesters downtown.
Among the participants in the “meeting of shame”as some media defined it, was a figure from the radical identity movement, the Austrian Martin Sellner.
AfD confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but assured that it did not support the “reemigration” project presented by Sellner.
Politicians, religious representatives and football coaches called on the population to mobilize against this party, which, according to polls, is the favorite to win the regional elections in the autumn in three eastern states.
“The Republic rises,” commented the weekly Der Spiegel. Other demonstrations were called for the next few days, including a human chain, on February 3, around the Bundestag in Berlin.
The protesters “give us courage,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared Sunday. “They defend our republic and our Constitution against their enemies.”
Source: Ambito
