British Columbia’s premier and two senior ministers were hanged in effigy outside the province’s legislature at a rally organized by COVID-19 vaccine mandate opponents on Thursday.

The event was promoted as a “sunset candlelight ceremony” to mark the 75th anniversary of the trial of Nazi scientists who conducted horrific human experiments on Jews and other targets of the regime. Seven of those doctors were executed for war crimes.

Speakers addressed what they called the erosion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms amid the COVID-19 response, and touted Ivermectin, a deworming medication that health officials have warned against as treatment for the virus.

Demonstrators in the crowd carried signs with messages reading “voluntary consent,” “medical choice,” and “COVID crimes against humanity.”

The claim that the COVID-19 vaccine is actually an “experiment” and therefore runs afoul of the code of medical ethics developed during the Nuremberg trials, has grown in popularity among opponents of COVID policy in recent months.

Thursday’s effigy display consisted of figures in white protective suits with the faces of Premier John Horgan, Health Minister Adrian Dix and Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, hanged by the neck. A fourth figure, with an orange balloon protruding from its face, was not clearly visible.