The protests came after some parties voted alongside the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), over a non-binding resolution on immigration last week.

Summary

Around 160,000 people protested in Berlin against cooperation with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) after some parties, including the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), voted alongside them on immigration policies.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz, a frontrunner for chancellor, faced backlash for attempting to pass an immigration bill with AfD’s support, despite ruling out a coalition.

The protests, part of nationwide demonstrations ahead of Germany’s snap elections, highlight fears over normalizing far-right influence in politics.

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel also condemned Merz’s actions.

  • @[email protected]English
    53•16 hours ago

    I am fascinated by news agencies copying the official numbers from the police. I was there. We were stuck most of the time because even the large areas near the Reichstag were overcrowded. From what I can say I guess it was way closer to that 250k of people the organizers were talking about.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•14 hours ago

      The main difference between police and organiser numbers is generally that organisers measure how many came in total, which is what they care about, while police measure how many where present at the same time, because that’s what they care about.

      It’s not some grand fucking conspiracy.

      • @[email protected]English
        11•13 hours ago

        I don’t see a conspiracy here, it’s more like a bit of frustration of some parts of the press not doing their jobs. Fact checking police numbers is one of them.

        Also: Speaking about “then thousands” at a protest gives another vibe than speaking about “hundred thousands” or “a quarter of a million” which is closer to the truth and makes a democratic protest seem smaller than it is.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•10 hours ago

          The press is to blame, yes, but the issue is not fact checking but not ever explaining why those numbers generally don’t match up. Could be as simple as “Police report 160k simultaneous protesters, organisers 250k total”. Make it clear, with two simple words, that the method of counting is different and thus both numbers can be true at the same time. Because otherwise the reader is going to think “one of them is lying” while the numbers, at least in Germany, tend to be pretty spot-on.

  • @gibmiserEnglish
    46•23 hours ago

    Can we start a metric for measuring a protest size relative to its country population?

    Then get some benchmarks from historical protests? Ex: famous civil rights protest had 0.8% population turnout.

    Then you could say more objecively if a modern protest represents a historical turnout…