People in Germany have the fundamental right, enshrined in the constitution or Basic Lawto assemble in public provided they remains peaceful and are unarmed.
However, several states have adopted their own assembly acts, which means some of them have additional restrictions, such as a ban on protesting on highways in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Notification generally necessary
Federal law itself imposes the obligation on organizers of protests to notify the local authority entrusted with approving public assemblies at least 48 hours before they invite people publicly to take part.
This aims to allow authorities to put in place security measures and to lessen the impact of any assembly on others by, for example, instigating traffic control measures.
Spontaneous assemblies are, however, also allowed in cases where a topical issue of urgent importance is at stake, and there is no notification requirement for indoor assemblies.
Protests or other assemblies can be banned beforehand or dispersed while they are underway, but this is considered a means of last resort.
Some locations are also subject to restrictions on protests, such as the area around the Reichstag building in Berlin where the German parliament sits, and around the Federal Constitutional Court and Karlsruhe.
Demonstrations around the Reichstag are, for example, permitted only when the parliament is not in session.
Germany no stranger to big protests
Post-war Germany has seen several massive demonstrations, including one in 1983, when 250,000 people — according to police estimates — gathered in the then West German capital, Bonn, to protest against the decision by NATO to station American nuclear missiles on German territory.
That was, however, surpassed in size by a protest in Berlin in 2003 against the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces, which drew a crowd of around half a million people.
There is some more detail on the law regarding the right of assembly in this DW article.
Source: www.dw.com
