Thousands of people marched through the German capital, Berlin in a protest against the newly introduced Coronavirus restrictions.

The demonstration was organized by the Stuttgart-based movement Querdenken 711 (or Lateral Thinking 711), a group that has a following of 16,000 people on Facebook. Communications for the rally was mostly done on encrypted messaging service Telegram.

Police were present and imposing strict mandatory mask wearing and social distancing measures. At midday they ordered demonstrators to disperse. A report suggests that around 18,000 people were present on the rally on Saturday.

Also Read

Tour De France in coronavirus shadow, may get cancelled

The International Cycling Union on Saturday proposed that  Tour De France will...

The rally that has been mostly peaceful had two people arrested as a result. City authorities had tried to stop the march however, could not do anything due to a court overturning the ban.

Although Germany has not felt the same impact of the pandemic that other European states have, the infection rate has seen some growth which resulted in the actions that the government took.

Police ordered the protestors to disperse due to the refusal of participants to maintain a safe distance.

“Unfortunately, we have no other option. All the measures taken so far have not led to compliance with the conditions” said Berlin police on Twitter.

Police officials stated that the dispersion happened mostly peacefully with some pockets of unrest which resulted in the two arrests and police officers utilizing pepper spray.