KASSEL, (Germany): German police clashed with protesters at a mass demonstration against coronavirus restrictions in the city of Kassel on Saturday, using water cannon, batons and pepper spray to disperse crowds.
The protest attracted between 15,000 and 20,000 demonstrators, a Kassel police spokesman told AFP, making it one of the largest such rallies so far this year.
“This is not what a peaceful protest looks like,” North Hesse police tweeted, adding that there had been “repeated attacks” by protesters against emergency service workers.
An AFP reporter saw scuffles erupt when a group of corona sceptics tried to break through a police cordon to join up with other protesters, resulting in shoving and the use pepper spray. Elsewhere in the city, police used batons and fired water cannon at people trying to break through barriers and throwing bottles.
There were also tussles with counter-demonstrators as the anti-Covid protesters strayed from the authorised protest sites and spread throughout the city.
The protest was called by the “Querdenker” or Lateral Thinkers movement, an umbrella group that has organised Germany’s main “anti-corona” demonstrations since the start of the pandemic.
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