Bern to get tougher on unauthorised Covid protesters

Police have deployed in force in Bern every Thursday, sometimes used water cannon and rubber bullets because of unauthorised weekly protests against government Covid restrictions. Keystone / Peter Schneider

Participants in often violent, unauthorised weekly protests in Bern against Covid measures will now have to pay for the cost of police operations, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported on Friday.

“We have now had almost a dozen unauthorised rallies in the city of Bern. There has always been violence and there were also calls for violence in the run-up,” Bern security chief Reto Nause told SRF. “This mix of unauthorised and violent is the prerequisite for making people pay the costs.”

Several hundred critics of government anti-coronavirus restrictions took to the streets again on Thursday evening in their most recent weekly protest. Police surrounded a large group of people at an early stage and again used tear-gas and rubber bullets because, they said, people were disregarding instructions. They checked a total of 534 people, and 510 were expelled from the area.

“The situation is extremely stressful and the level of escalation is getting higher and higher,” said Nause. “We are now at a point where the rule of law must use all the instruments at its disposal.”

It is not yet clear what costs will be charged to the demonstrators. According to Nause, this will depend on the length of the police operation and the number of people involved. Last week, Bernese cantonal councillor Philippe Müller put the costs per evening of demonstrations at between CHF100,000 ($108,000) and CHF200,000.

According to Bern’s police law, the canton can charge organisers or people who use violence up to CHF10,000 or even CHF30,000 in serious cases. For the costs to be passed on, the rally must be unauthorised and violent. In addition, the police must be able to prove the incidents to the persons concerned.