A planned demonstration against the Corona measures in Kassel remains prohibited.
The administrative court of the north Hessian city rejected on Wednesday the express application of the applicant against the ban on the meeting "Midsummer in Kassel - Preserve - Reconcile - Draw" planned for this Saturday (June 19), as the court announced.
From the Chamber's point of view, the city has made a “sufficiently viable and concrete risk prognosis” and rightly stated that both the applicant and the participants belonged to the so-called “lateral thinkers” movement, it said.
The city also relied on an extensive risk assessment by the police headquarters in North Hesse and on experience with comparable, partly forbidden events on March 20, "as well as individual experiences of breaches of conditions with the applicant in previous demonstrations," it said.
Still high health risk
On March 20, a large demonstration in Kassel with around 20,000 participants led to violent clashes.
Then there was criticism of the police, who were accused, among other things, of being too cautious in violating the Corona rules.
The administrative court said on Wednesday that in view of the decline in the number of corona infections, a ban on assemblies based on these numbers alone would not be justified.
Nevertheless, the Robert Koch Institute continues to assume a high health risk for the population and the Bundestag continues to assess the situation as problematic.
Neither the organizers of the demonstration nor the participants offered "a guarantee that the relevant requirements, which served to reduce the risk of infection, would actually be implemented and adhered to". This does not ensure that minimum distances are observed. Because the dissolution of the assembly is foreseeable, the assembly authority should also prohibit it preventively, the court found. An appeal to the Hessian Administrative Court is possible against the decision.