Traditional Easter marches were held in various cities in Germany. Thousands of people took to the streets and appealed to the government with calls for peace, disarmament, and diplomacy.
Axar.az reports that thousands of people participated in about 70 actions held across the country.
The first marches started in the morning in the cities of Duisburg, Mainz, Wolfsburg, and Schwerin. More than 110 demonstrations, rallies, bike rides, and other actions are planned in a number of cities, including Berlin, Bremen, Munich, Leipzig, and Stuttgart, as part of the holiday, which will last until Monday.
The main goal of this year's marches is to oppose the increase in military potential in Germany and to demand that the government take concrete steps to ensure that the country is not "prepared for war" but "capable of peace." This year, the participants of the Easter marches mainly protested against the Russia-Ukraine war, the tension in the Gaza Strip, and the US's desire to deploy medium-range missiles in Germany.
Easter marches have been held in Germany since the 1960s. The largest-scale actions took place during the Cold War, in the 1980s. At that time, hundreds of thousands of people participated in the marches. Restrictions on actions during the pandemic and disagreements within the peace movement after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war have led to a decrease in the number of participants in recent years.