BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd May, 2019) Over 5,000 people have joined an unauthorized protest rally in Berlin on May Day, the German capital's police told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"According to our data, more than 5,000 people are taking part in the rally, it is still underway. [We have] recorded first cases of disobedience: someone threw several beer bottles at the police," the police said.
According to the police, the rally is being held without the authorities' permission.
A Sputnik correspondent, meanwhile, reported that the crowd of the participants of the unauthorized rally was moving from the Goerlitzer Park via the Frankfurter Allee to one of the central highways in East Berlin.
The crowd is led by a group of masked men wearing black jackets and shouting slogans: "Anti-Capitalism" and "Police, Out!"
Periodically, the protesters burn firecrackers, with several masked people in black jackets having thrown smoke bombs from balconies of the nearby houses.
The crowd, from both sides, is being accompanied by dozens of police officers in riot gear. All the streets and alleys leading to the center, including the Frankfurter Allee, have been blocked, with police buses parked nearby and a helicopter flying in the sky. Entrances to the subway near the place of the rally are closed.
Earlier, supporters of left-wing parties announced the plans to hold an authorized rally on social networks. According to a Sputnik correspondent, the rally may be attended by the far-left � the so-called Black Block movement, which previously committed mass administrative and criminal offenses during protests in Hamburg and Frankfurt.
Traditional May Day demonstrations, organized by trade unions, have, meanwhile, ended in Berlin, having drawn some 8,000 people, according to the police.
