Wednesday April 14, 2021
Berlin takes action
The protection of the constitution observes corona protests
According to the Berlin authorities, “Reich citizens” and right-wing radicals have been mingling among the participants in the Corona protests for months. A third group cannot be covered with previous grids. But they all have one thing in common: the degradation of the state. Now the protection of the constitution take a closer look – to the displeasure of the AfD.
The Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution has placed parts of the Corona protest movement under observation. “The Corona protests have changed noticeably,” said Interior Senator Andreas Geisel in the Committee for the Protection of the Constitution of the Berlin House of Representatives. The protests have become “partly radicalized” and have become “a catalyst and outlet for democratic skepticism and in some cases even contempt for democracy”.
The protests were used by constitutional enemies to spread anti-democratic positions. The result of the analysis by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is that an “outrage movement” has formed that cannot be classified in common categories such as right-wing, left-wing or religious extremism. It is a “heterogeneous movement”.
United in permanent defamation
Geisel emphasized that it was important to differentiate between the participants. “The protests cannot be assessed entirely as unconstitutional,” said the Interior Senator. The majority of the participants protested peacefully against the measures to contain the corona pandemic.
In addition to this peaceful majority, however, there are right-wing extremists and “Reichsbürger” as well as another group “which cannot or can only partially be assigned to one of the known areas”. According to the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this group seems to be united in its “permanent defamation of the Federal Republic, its institutions and the representatives of democracy”. This group spreads false information in a targeted manner and is increasingly ready to verbally and physically attack politicians, scientists and journalists.
Geisel emphasized that this group only regards the corona protests as a “vehicle”. Over the years she has used various topics for her own purposes. “The unifying bond is not Corona, but rather skepticism and contempt for democracy,” said Geisel. Concrete steps taken by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution were not discussed in the public part of the committee meeting.
AfD: freedom of the press also for “alternative media”
The spokesman for the protection of the constitution of the Berlin SPD parliamentary group, Tom Schreiber, welcomed the fact that Berlin “takes a clear position”. It is “unbearable” that vaccination centers have to be guarded in Berlin. Left interior expert Niklas Schrader described the decision as “logical”. However, much information has been known for a long time. Most threatening is the support for anti-democratic behavior “from the masses” of the demonstrators. “No intelligence service in the world can help that there is no contradiction,” warned Schrader.
AfD parliamentary group vice-president Ronald glasses criticized the decision. The freedom of the press applies “not only to ARD and ZDF, but also to alternative media,” he said. They should “not be defamed as the mainspring of an extremist movement”.
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