First Christopher Street Day in Halle: Queer young people demonstrate against AfD election success

This is Johanna's first Christopher Street Day. The 17-year-old lets her gaze wander over the colorful crowd at Halle's market square. At least 5,000 people came, a speaker announced over a loudspeaker, which had previously rolled in to the sounds of Lady Gaga's Born This Way - the police had originally expected only around half of the participants. This also applies to Johanna, who made her way to the city center from Ammendorf near Halle that morning.

What begins on the market square like a colorful street festival, with stands, speeches and a sea of ​​colorful flags, is also a political demonstration: Solidarity cannot be voted out is the motto of today and refers to the results of the state election last Sunday, in which the AfD emerged as the winner with almost 44 percent of the vote. This year, the focus is on the question of how safe and natural queer life will be in Saxony-Anhalt in the future. Various election posters still adorn the cityscape all around. Many of them from the AfD. They bear the inscription: “Everything is possible.”