Berlin (dpa) – In the south-western city of Freiburg, around 4,500 people joined a demonstration against a proposed vaccination mandate and other measures to contain the pandemic, police said. Organizers had expected about 7,000 participants.

According to a police spokesperson, there were no incidents of note, although counter-demonstrators had tried to block the route of the march with bicycles.

In the eastern city of Leipzig, police put an end to a demonstration attended by several hundred people.

A spokesperson said a few dozen people broke through a police cordon and ran onto the grounds of the psychiatric ward of Leipzig University Hospital, where the police detained them to establish their identities.

According to the police official, investigations are now under way – among other things, for violating the assembly act, resisting law enforcement officers and violating coronavirus rules in the state of Saxony.

Elsewhere in the state, up to 1,250 people gathered for an unauthorized protest in the town of Zwönitz, a police said.

Ten people’s details were taken down because they had disguised their faces – an offence at public gatherings in Germany. In addition, authorities have launched an investigation into the demonstration for not being registered beforehand.

In Brandenburg an der Havel, a town west of Berlin, the police broke up an unregistered demonstration against coronavirus policies. Participants faced charges for joining an unauthorized gathering or not following mask-wearing rules.

Several hundred people also demonstrated in Schwerin in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Saturday. At its peak, the gathering had around 900 people, according to the police.

There were other events linked to the pandemic, for example in the town of Cuxhaven on Germany’s North Sea coast, where around 1,250 people formed a socially distanced human chain stretching 2.5 kilometres, a spokesperson for the local authority said.

The stunt was meant as a showing of solidarity.

“The majority of society supports the temporary measures against the spread of the coronavirus out of a sense of responsibility towards our fellow human beings,” the organizers’ appeal said.