Efert/Dresde. Thousands of people took to the streets in the main cities of Thuringia and Saxony in eastern Germany on Sunday to protest against right-wing extremism, a week before regional elections in those states.
Organisers counted 7,000 participants in front of the regional parliament building in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia, while police said there were 4,500. In Saxony, the organisers of protest marches in Leipzig and Dresden estimated the turnout at 11,000 in each of the two cities.
The protests were peaceful, police said. The organisers, including the German Trade Union Confederation and political and cultural groups, wanted to send a signal against the country’s shift to the right and the possible electoral success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the regional elections.
“Politically, we are in the middle of a storm. The stakes are high. We must not allow right-wing extremist tendencies to become the majority in Saxony and Thuringia, because they are poison for society,” Frank Werneke, chairman of the Verdi service union, told dpa. The AfD, with its regional leader Björn Höcke, has been in first place in the polls in Thuringia for weeks.
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– 2024-08-30 10:19:48
