Germany’s Covid-19 rebellion goes pop and a manhunt in Belgium
“Ich mach nicht da mit” (“I am not doing it”). So goes an anti-lockdown song by a German far-right conspiracy theorist that topped Amazon charts in the country this week. The R&B singer Xavier Naidoo’s track was swiftly removed from YouTube, Spotify and Apple music for violating community standards. But, because Amazon was slower to react, thousands of Naidoo’s Telegram fans swarmed to the platform, pushing it to the top of the charts. The song, which encourages resistance against the “corona dictatorship” and describes vaccines as “poison” also provides a perfect soundtrack to a bizarre situation unfolding next door.
THE BELGIAN MANHUNT
I have been watching in fascination as a Netflix-worthy saga plays out in Belgium. The nation’s army and police have deployed hundreds of officers, with dogs and mine clearance equipment, and closed a major highway as they comb through Hoge Kempen — a 12,000 hectare national park east of Brussels — in search of a 46-year-old career soldier named Jurgen Conings.
Conings is heavily armed. Belgian police believe he robbed a military base and is in possession of an array of weapons, including anti-tank rocket launchers and a sub-machine gun. Some of the arsenal was found in his abandoned car.
Dutch and German police are on standby, in case Conings attempts to cross the border. Belgian authorities say that he poses an “acute threat” to the public and, in particular, a well-known epidemiologist named Marc van Ranst, whom he has threatened. In his last message, Conings said that he no longer wants to live in a world run by “politicians and virologists.”