Case 449_20
449_20 personal_scope
20. <5> On 27 June 2013 the administrative authority amended the conditions
to the effect that, inter alia, staff of emergency medical services, firefighters
and medical doctors had to be given access to the site at all times. The
amended order was handed over to the organiser of the demonstration. On
29 June 2013 the administrative authority asked Dr S., a medical doctor, to
assess the situation. Dr S. was initially refused access by the organiser of the
demonstration since he could not prove his identity; shortly thereafter, he
was allowed access, accompanied by police officers. Dr S. then assisted
with the infusion of one dehydrated participant and subsequently reported
that there were some thirty to forty persons lying around in a more or less
apathetic and disinterested manner, as well as one person who was in a life-
threatening state. Based on that report, the administrative authority ordered
the dispersal of the demonstration on 30 June 2013 at 00.07 a.m. The order
stated that the participants prevented a comprehensive assessment of all
hunger-striking participants by emergency doctors, contrary to the condition
set out in the above-mentioned amended order, and that it had to be assumed
that there was an imminent risk for the life of the hunger-striking
participants. The order recalled that the organiser of the demonstration had
threatened that deaths might occur, that participants had refused to eat or
drink for several days, and that many of them had to be referred to hospital
already. The balancing of the competing interests of freedom of expression
and of assembly on the one hand and in protecting the right to life of the
hunger-striking participants on the other clearly came down in favour of the
latter, the order concluded.