Water marches – against the wrong people

On Saturday, the “March for Läbe” marched through the streets of Zurich-Oerlikon for the sixth time – the largest gathering of abortion opponents in Switzerland. Thousands of people who want to deny people with uteruses the right to their own bodies marched under the motto “Together for Life”. Accompanied, protected, escorted. Anyone who opposed it, around 200 people, received the water cannon. Plus rubber shot and two arrests.

You can argue about overturned containers and firecrackers, and you should. But let's keep the picture in mind: Some are allowed to march year after year to delegitimize a fundamental right and are carried through the city by a large contingent. The others will be sprayed away as soon as they touch the route. That's not symmetry. This is an announcement as to whose concerns the state sees as order and whose as disruption.

The relocation to Oerlikon - no permit for the city center for six years, officially due to "security concerns" - is being sold as neutrality. In reality, it is a management of the conflict that normalizes the march and marginalizes the contradiction. The Juso strongly criticized the police. Rightly so.

Anyone who lets abortion opponents go under police protection and disperses the opposing side with water cannons is making a political decision - and should not disguise it as traffic regulation. Peace is cheaper. Basic rights too.