COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — About 1 million people turned out for a Pride parade in the western German city of Cologne on Sunday to participate in or watch the colorful festivities.
About 180 LGBTQ groups and music groups took part in the parade through the city center – more than ever before, German news agency dpa reported. Organizers said about 1.2 million visitors attended the festivities, while police estimated the crowd at around 1 million.
With the parade, Cologne is sending “a strong signal of diversity, of tolerance, against hate and against exclusion,” said Hendrik Wüst, the first governor of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Cologne is located, to attend the parade in the city in its roughly 30-year history , DPA reported.
Cologne has one of the largest LGBTQ communities in the country.
“Everywhere in the world, unfortunately also in Germany, there are extremists at work who do not want to give us our freedom,” said Sven Lehmann, the German government’s commissioner for the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity. “The strong signal from Cologne is: We will never allow them to take away this freedom.”
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