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.