Andy Ngo: Media’s Selective Lockdown Protest Coverage ‘Empowers’ Antifa Violence

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LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

In comments made exclusively to Breitbart London, political commentator Andy Ngo said the disparity in media coverage of lockdown protests will lead to more Antifa violence, as at least 350 people were arrested in Berlin after alt-left radicals clashed with police on Friday.

On Friday, radical leftists took to the streets of Berlin, flouting Germany’s social distancing rules in order to protest against capitalism and to show solidarity with illegal migrants attempting to enter into the European Union.

The German government estimates that around 1,000 protestors gathered in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, with smaller protests cropping up throughout the city to mark International Workers’ Day — a socialist holiday celebrated on May Day.

Commenting on the lack of media attention given to left-wing May Day protests compared to that given to right-wing protests, Mr Ngo said that the media is serving to enable violence from far-left groups.

“Observe how Antifa and far-left demonstrators who defy virus health guidelines, sometimes violently, haven’t been treated with the same public contempt as conservative protesters asking for states to open up,” Ngo said.

“In Chicago, they terrorised children inside a migrant facility on May Day when they attacked the building,” Ngo continued, adding: “Far-left extremists are empowered to be violent by the legitimacy and pass given to them by mainstream society and media.”

Berlin deployed over 5,000 police officers in response to the Antifa protests, according to Deutsche Welle, yet the police largely refused to disperse the crowds — sparking accusations that they intentionally enabled the left-wing activists to break the coronavirus lockdown.

The local police union denied those claims, saying: “Statements that our forces deliberately allowed violations of the Corona Regulation are more than presumptuous. The police tried all day yesterday to ensure the best possible protection against infection.”

In the evening, tensions between the police and members of Antifa began to rise, with the protestors throwing bottles and stones at officers and leaving members of the city’s emergency service injured, Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting reports.

Members of a German public-service television broadcaster ZDF camera crew were also attacked by a group of 15 during the protests, leading four members of the crew to be hospitalised. Five men and one woman were arrested in connection to the attack.

“It was not a peaceful May Day,” the police union said.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka

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