In Switzerland and the United Kingdom, thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday April 24 to protest against the restrictions put in place in their country to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.
In London, despite restrictions against mass gatherings, several organizations had called on the British to demonstrate in small groups against the latest containment measures still in force, as well as against the establishment of vaccine passports, being studied by the government. Five people were arrested and eight police officers were injured, police said, as a result of incidents during the protest.
Equipped with banners and signs on which one could read slogans like “You are checked”, “No mask, no vax, no confinement”, or “Let’s take back our freedom! “, the thousands of demonstrators of the march “Unite for Freedom” had left Hyde Park at 1 pm.
“Today we are marching for our medical freedom”, could one read on the Facebook page of Save Our Rights UK, one of the organizers, who said “Mobilize against any proposal for a vaccine passport or certification of Covid status, because they go against medical ethics and our human rights”.
“I will survive this pandemic by doing the opposite of what they say”, had written a young woman on a sign displayed proudly. Others had provided themselves with white umbrellas, on which they had painted “No to vax passport” (“No to vaccine passports”).
This march crossed London even as the capital begins to lift its restrictions, in response to the marked improvement in the health situation in the United Kingdom – the country most affected in Europe by the Covid-19 with more than 127,000 dead – and progress of vaccination.
After more than three months of confinement, non-essential shops, the terraces of pubs and restaurants as well as hairdressers and gyms reopened in England almost two weeks ago, returning the cities to their liveliness.
Demonstration prohibited in Switzerland
900 kilometers from London, another demonstration brought together thousands of people on Saturday in eastern Switzerland, in the small town of Rapperswil-Jona. Banned by the authorities, this march was also intended to protest against the anti-coronavirus restrictions in the country.
Rarely wearing masks, protesters marched carrying Swiss flags and shouting ” freedom “. According to the police, around 4,000 people demonstrated in peace for this new rally against health restrictions at the call of a group called “Stiller Protest” (“silent protest”).
Authorities said they tried to deter protesters, stopping cars heading towards the city center and explaining the illegal nature of the rally.
They specified that they had chosen not to disperse the demonstration for fear of overflows, considering that“A strong repression would not have been justifiable under the law”. Police said they briefly arrested two people and expelled 45 people from the city for twenty-four hours.
Protesters accuse the Swiss government of using dictatorial powers to impose restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19. Switzerland has put in place a process of gradually lifting the restrictions. This week, the sports facilities and the terraces of the bars and restaurants were thus able to reopen. But critics say it takes too long to return to normal life.
Switzerland, which has 8.6 million inhabitants, has recorded nearly 650,000 cases of contamination with the new coronavirus and nearly 10,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Nearly 10% of the population is also vaccinated.
While the epidemic situation seems rather gritty in the country, Switzerland announced on Saturday that it had detected on its soil the first case of the Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2, responsible for an epidemic outbreak in India.
