Fridays for Future protests in Hamburg and Berlin with thousands of participants

Berlin. Thousands of people gathered on Friday for a demonstration of the climate protection movement Fridays for Future in Berlin. During an initial assessment, police said there were more than 5,000 participants.

According to the organizers, more than 13,000 people demonstrated in Berlin for climate protection, democracy and against the right. The rally started at noon in front of the Brandenburg Gate. A smaller group of fewer than 10 people also waved Palestinian flags.

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Too little distance from anti-Semitism: Singer Lina does not appear on the demo in Hamburg

A Fridays for Future demonstration also took place in Hamburg on Friday. In partly pouring rain, several hundred people took to the streets in Hamburg on Friday to demand climate protection and democracy. More than a thousand people followed the call of the climate movement Fridays for Future, a police spokesperson told the German news agency in Hamburg. That was considerably less than initially expected; the organizers initially expected around 15,000 participants.

“The people who are there are definitely very involved,” a spokeswoman for Fridays for Future said in Hamburg on Friday afternoon. Many people danced near the stage before the meeting started.

The singer Lina was actually supposed to perform at the climate demonstration, but the 26-year-old canceled at short notice on Friday. “I would like to express my protest against the fact that Fridays For Future Hamburg does not sufficiently distance itself from anti-Semitism and does not take precautions to ensure that anti-Semitic content is regularly and widely shown during the demonstrations they organize,” she said. Lina Larissa Strahl on her Instagram account. Greta Thunberg and especially the people around her have been spreading anti-Semitic clichés and hatred against Israelis around the world for months.

“I cannot and will not ignore this.” The demonstrations must be a space for respectful coexistence without being used for hatred and discrimination against Jews, the 26-year-old emphasized. Lina Larissa Strahl was previously seen in cinemas as Bibi Blocksberg. Most recently she danced in the RTL program “Let’s Dance”.

Several hundred people also took part in the climate protests in Kiel on Friday. According to the police, about 800 participants came. About 1,000 were expected in advance. The demonstrations are part of the European climate strike on the occasion of the European elections.

The meetings are intended to draw attention to the urgency of the climate crisis before the European elections. The climate activists are calling for an EU-wide phaseout of coal, oil and gas by 2035, as well as a doubling of investments in renewables and climate-neutral industries. The new EU Parliament must decide clearly in favor of climate protection and democracy, Frieda Egeling, spokeswoman for Fridays For Future Berlin, said in a statement. Fridays for Future is also committed to sending a clear signal against the shift to the right through careful voting.

The climate strikes in Germany are part of a wave of European climate protests lasting several days. According to the information, actions are planned in more than twelve countries. 100 demonstrations have been registered in Germany.

RND/dpa