Around 65,000 revellers marched for LGBTQ rights at Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day celebration on Saturday, more than three times as many as expected.
It was the biggest demonstration in Berlin since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The parade started with a call from Klaus Lederer, Berlin’s senator for culture, to make the city a “queer-freedom zone” in response to deteriorating safety for gays and lesbians in Hungary and neighbouring Poland.
“LGBT-free zones” have been declared in parts of Poland, while Hungary recently passed a law banning the depiction of homosexuality or gender reassignment to minors that has been denounced as discriminatory by human rights groups.
Lederer said the situation in the two EU members “sends shivers down my back.” The senator also noted that the pandemic had been particularly hard for some gays and lesbians at home as shelters were closed. He said “there is still much work to be done.”
Police spokesman Martin Dams initially told The Associated Press that an estimated 35,000 people were taking part in the parade, but this figure was revised upwards later Saturday. Organizers put the figure at 80,000.
They had been expecting around 20,000 people amid social distancing
rules and a ban on alcohol to combat the risk of new coronavirus infections.
There was no parade last year due to the pandemic so many people took advantage of the warm sunny weather.
