Easter March Hundreds demonstrate against war
Bonn · Participants of the fourth ‘Easter march’ made their way through Bonn city on Sunday. The Kennedy Bridge was closed for a short time while demonstrators remembered refugees who lost their lives at sea.
Organizers of an Easter Sunday demonstration could have done without one participant: the rain. As if right on cue; even hail began to pelt the demonstrators who gathered in a display of peace. Police counted 250 demonstrators at the most, while organizers estimated around 500 participants. They began at the Beuel Rhine promenade and marched to Friedensplatz.
“No to war and weapons exports, yes to solidarity with war victims and accepting refugees” was the motto of the Easter Sunday demonstration. Susanne Rohde of the team of organizers, said “The topics of fleeing war and our rejection of war are very closely related.” Before the marchers set out, they sang Easter demonstration songs of the 60’s with lyrics about a world without weapons.
Police blocked off a lane in one direction on the Kennedy Bridge while demonstrators stopped there for twenty minutes to remember refugees who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Some threw flowers in the Rhine in their memory.
At Bertha-von-Suttner Platz, Ilse Jacobs of the International Women’s Center, recalled the namesake of the place where they were standing. Bertha von Suttner was an Austrian pacifist and peace researcher, and the first woman to be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.
In front of the old town hall, the topic of U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany was mentioned. Rohde called on the mayor of Bonn to demand the removal of nuclear weapons which are said to be stored in the town of Büchel in Rhineland Palatinate. For the 49-year-old, peace is more than the absence of war. “Social equality is also a part of it, as well as people being able to remain in their home countries because peace rules,” she said.
(Orig. text: Alexander Grantl)
