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Photo: Leon Kuegeler / AFP
According to police reports, around 30,000 people gathered in downtown Münster from late afternoon to demonstrate for democracy and against right-wing extremism. Due to the large number of people, individual areas had to be closed temporarily. The demonstration was largely peaceful, the police said in a statement.
The organizers had registered 1,500 participants with the police. But this number had already been reached at the start in the early evening. The police had to close the entrances early because of overcrowding. On the square in front of the cathedral, a few meters away from the town hall, a screen broadcast the events from the stage.
Numerous groups, associations, parties and around 30 mayors from several places in Münsterland joined the call of the “Not a Meter to the Nazis” initiative. The reason for the protests between the Lamberti Church and the Principal Market was the New Year's reception of the AfD Münster district association in the city's town hall. AfD members of the Bundestag Peter Boehringer and Martin Reichardt were announced as guests.
Occasional scuffles
On the sidelines of the events, "some demonstrators" tried to prevent participants from accessing the AfD New Year's reception, the police explained. There were “scattered” scuffles. According to their own information, the police filed a total of 17 criminal complaints, including for bodily harm, resistance to law enforcement officers, insults and violation of the ban on masking under the Assembly Act. Twelve people were sent off.
Münster is not a good place for the AfD in elections. In the 2021 federal election, the party achieved the worst result nationwide with 2.9 percent in the student, administrative and episcopal city next to Cologne (constituency II).
People in Kürten near Cologne also demonstrated against an AfD event. More than 1,000 participants gathered there while the AfD Rhein-Berg district association held a “Populist Ash Friday” in the local community center.
The wave of protests against the right in recent weeks was triggered by revelations by the media company “Correctiv” about a meeting of radical right-wingers in Potsdam in November, in which AfD politicians as well as individual members of the CDU and the very conservative “Values Union” also took part. There, the former head of the right-wing extremist "Identitarian Movement" in Austria, Martin Sellner, fabled about "remigration" - the plan that a large number of people of foreign origin should leave the country, even under duress.
mgo/AFP/dpa