BioNTech, founded by a married couple of Turkish descent, is working with Pfizer on the front-running COVID vaccine. That’s put it in the sights of militant conspiracy theories. When news of a 90 percent effective COVID vaccine, based on trial results, was made public this week, much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. But for a militant far-right anti-vax group in Germany, the announcement was a call to arms. The group, Forke und Schaufel (Fork and Shovel), has called for a rally later this month in the city of Mainz, where BioNTech, the German company that is developing the vaccine along with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is headquartered. The self-described “corona rebel” group’s call to mobilise circulated on social media Friday, with the slogan: “End corona dictatorship; preserve democracy; save existence.” The plans for the rally on the 28th of November have alarmed far-right monitoring groups, who say the organisers are deeply-connected figures on Germany’s right-wing extremist scene, and have seized on the country’s increasingly volatile and conspiracy-addled anti-vax, corona-sceptic movement as a way to advance their goals of overthrowing the government. At a previous Fork and Shovel rally in Mainz on the 26th of September, Stefan Räpple, then a lawmaker for the far-right AfD party in Baden-Württemberg’s state parliament, was filmed giving a speech calling for violent insurrection.
via vice: Far-Right Anti-Vaxxers Are Targeting the German Co-Developer of the COVID Vaccine