Youth, students, workers and there families, football fans, and grandparents, over 15,000 of them, demonstrated against new police laws that will massively expand the powers of the security authorities and curtail basic civil rights.
Where were the right and far right parties ? Why weren't they protesting against increased police powers which are threatening basic democratic rights ? Because they agree with increasing the power of the state and have many supporters in the police, security and intelligence agencies. They prefer to terrify mentally deficient citizens with scary fantasies of muslim invasions when the real danger is the German state itself.
Fifteen thousand protest throughout Germany against war, police repression and the fascist right
By our reporters
12 September 2018
Over the weekend more then 15,000 people protested in different German cities against the neo-Nazi right, police repression, war and social inequality.
The largest protest came Saturday, as 10,000 people demonstrated in Hanover against the Lower Saxony Police Law (NPOG). In addition to parties and civic organisations, the protest was supported by a number of football fan groups and smaller initiatives. Many of the demonstrators not only opposed the police law, but also the increasing lurch to the right in politics, militarism and growing social inequality.
A section of the demonstration in Hannover
The issue at the heart of the protest was the new police law. As in other German states, the powers of the security authorities are to be massively expanded and basic civil rights curtailed in Lower Saxony with the NPOG.
As is the case at a federal level, a coalition of the CDU and SPD governs in Lower Saxony. At both levels, the coalition is advancing a right-wing program of militarism, social cuts and incitement directed against refugees.
The large demonstration in Hanover shows that these policies are rejected by the population. Many protesters are well aware of the connection between the despised policies of war and social cuts and the police law. “Combatting the shift to the right means rejecting the police law,” one large banner read. “It’s all about repressing even further those social layers who already have no access to education and wealth,” one participant declared. “The political class in this country is preparing for more unrest because of growing social problems, and it's introducing the judicial measures to tackle it,” another said. “They are preparing for major social conflicts.”
Fans of Eintracht Braunschweig at the demonstration in Hanover
In Munich, about 3,000 people demonstrated on Saturday at Marienplatz against a rally of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The deputy AfD leader, Beatrix von Storch, tried to hold a rally as part of the party’s campaign for the impending state election in Bavaria, but the 120 AfD supporters faced at least 25 times as many counterdemonstrators.
A section of the demonstration at the Marienplatz
Storch’s speech at the AfD rally was drowned out by a sea of cat-calls and booing. Demonstrators shouted “Nazis out,” “Nobody needs the AfD” and “There is no right to spread Nazi propaganda.” The AfD was forced to end its meeting an hour earlier than planned.
When Storch arrived in Dachau on Sunday for a meeting, she was met by 2,500 demonstrators. The city with 40,000 inhabitants is notorious around the world as the location of a concentration camp from 1933 to 1945.
One of the speakers at the counterdemonstration was Ernst Grube, who was incarcerated in a concentration camp by the Nazis for being a “half Jew” and son of a Communist Party member. He is still being spied upon by the German secret service today.
A section of the demonstration at the Marienplatz
