Around half a million people demonstrated against right-wing extremism across Germany at the weekend, according to preliminary data from the Interior Ministry, German agency DPA published.
The ministry spoke of 457,000 people at 128 events. Due to the lack of figures from the states of Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saarland, this is a provisional figure, a spokesman emphasized.
According to the police, more than 150,000 people gathered on Saturday at the Reichstag building in Berlin, which houses Germany’s lower house of parliament, to demonstrate in favour of democracy and tolerance. The organizer spoke of 300,000 participants.
The Interior Ministry regularly bases its figures on police estimates.
Street protests have been held in cities of various sizes across Germany following a report published on January 10 by investigative journalist group Correctiv.
The report revealed details of a meeting in November between radical right-wingers and individual politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in which plans for the expulsion of millions of people with immigrant backgrounds were discussed.
The gathering discussed how to make large numbers of foreign nationals – including asylum seekers, what the group called “non-assimilated citizens” and immigrants with German passports – leave the country, even under duress.
On Monday, people once again planned to take to the streets to protest right-wing extremism. Around 7,000 people were expected to take part in a rally in Frankfurt, says German press agency DPA.
