Essens Oberbürgermeister Thomas Kufen (CDU) reagiert entsetzt auf eine Demonstration am Freitagabend in seiner Stadt.
Translation:
Essen's mayor Thomas Kufen (CDU) reacts with horror to a demonstration in his city on Friday evening. 3,000 people, including many Islamists, marched through the Ruhr metropolis.
Essen's mayor Thomas Kufen (CDU) reacted with outrage and incomprehension to an anti-Israel demonstration that marched through the Ruhr metropolis on Friday evening. Several of the approximately 3,000 participants chanted slogans and held up posters calling for a "Khilafah" (caliphate) in Germany. The three-hour procession on the edge of the city center was accompanied by 450 police officers and observed by state security.
According to the Essen police, the demonstration was registered by a private individual. However, the main organizer was apparently the “Generation Islam” group, which security experts consider to be part of the pan-Islamist movement “Hizb ut-Tahrir” (HuT) . HuT has been banned in Germany since 2003. The main speaker at the final rally in Essen was the activist Ahmad Tamim, the head of “Generation Islam.” The Islamic scholar Ahmad Omeirate told WAZ that Tamim was “using the Middle East conflict for mobilization and radicalization.”
Mayor Kufen regretted on Saturday morning that "Islamists, anti-democrats and Jew-haters" were allowed to parade through Essen protected by the freedom of assembly guaranteed by the Basic Law: "That is difficult to bear." The CDU politician, who was the North Rhine-Westphalia state government's integration officer from 2005 to 2010, called for consequences: "The Office for the Protection of the Constitution must take a closer look at Hizb ut-Tahrir's splinter and successor groups. Bans must be an option."
The demonstrators shouted slogans in Arabic and German on Friday evening. Posters condemned the Israeli military operation in Gaza ("Stop the genocide") after the terrorist attack by the Palestinian Hamas, and one sign read: "German raison d'état calls for the killing of children." The organizers initially used loudspeakers to remind people of the police requirement that no participant should question Israel's right to exist. The tip-off was met with loud boos from the crowd.
At the beginning of the march, participants were also asked over loudspeakers to separate men and women. So it happened that most of the female demonstrators marched through the city behind the male participants. They repeatedly shouted "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") and held up signs calling for the unity of all Muslim believers and the establishment of a caliphate in Germany. Individual demonstrators stuck their right index fingers in the air; This gesture is intended to symbolize belief in the "one God", but is also seen as a symbol of the terrorist organization "Islamic State". The design of several black and white banners and flags also resembled depictions of IS.
The Essen police announced on Saturday that they would subsequently analyze the Friday demonstration and examine its “criminal relevance”. It turned out that the motive for a pro-Palestine meeting was only a pretext. Instead, the organizers held a religious event.
There's plenty of survey data. It's a sad reality that a large part, likely the majority of the adult population, in Gaza is staunchly fascist. And I don't mean post-fascist or right-wing-populist like Trump and Le Pen are, I mean fascist in the sense that Hitler and Mussolini were.
I would get less worrisome poll results if I went to a KKK rally.
Given how popular violence against fascists is in the feddiverse, I'm really vexed about the side that is taken here. Usually I have to remind people that just killing fascists on sight isn't a good solution to the problem of fascism, but suddenly people here sound like Trump did on the Charlottesville rally.
Seeing people openly supporting Islamic jihadism like we're seeing, not even one generation removed from 9/11 is so crazy to me.
Social Media is a damned virus. It's fucking up far too many people for society to not fall apart at the seams. From supporting someone like Trump, to not believing in the science around COVID, to now supporting Hamas..... like wtf is happening in the world.
The protests for Palestine in London have been a cross section of the left and centre left. Muslims, Jews, Christians Socialists, liberals. White and black. Young and old. But our politicians and media paint them as pro Hamas hate marches.
Throwing everyone in one bucket is a terrible idea.
I also hate the apartheid shit going in and around Israel as well es the war crimes commited by their government and military.
At the same time I hate antisemitism equally as much.
The people who marched on this "protest" are just awful, hateful and terribly dumb people who deserve no support and all the criticism. But not everyone protesting because of the current situation with Israel is therefore automatically doing it for awful reasons.
If you read the article you would see that it is merely used as a pretext. As Germany initially banned all demonstrations in support for Palestinians it is no suprise that extremist groups could undermine the cause, as moderates werent willing to get beaten up by cops.
This is an expected effect that was deliberately caused by the German government. They full well knew before that banning moderate demonstrations will lead to radicals taking over. And it seems to be part of a strategy to rile up hate for muslims in general in conjunction with plans to step up deportations and limit access to refugee granted under human rights.
Now that's a fun conspiracy theory to completely ignore the kind of people who protest against Israel.
And no one gets "beaten up" by the police at these protests. In fact the police had to establish protected zones for journalists to shield them from the "peace" protestors.
There is no genocide. Egypt closed their border with Gaza and tells the people to fuck off because they are convinced they are terrorists. And Palestines "friends" only give Israel shit because they know Egypt is right.
When you start siding with and "understanding" what military dictatorships like Egypt are doing the you really should take a pause and listen to yourself.
Are there any red lines that you are not willing to cross? Is the dislike for brown people so strong that basics tenants are sacrificed.
Yeah but they don't really get specific. It's like a political protest where someone yells hang em, it was said sure but it didn't necessarily reflect the intent of the protest or the other Peters protestors.
So the obvious truth is starting to get shouted in the streets: the muslim communities dream about a caliphate in Europe. It will get messy for our kids.
I think that there is a concerted effort by right wing Zionist media and politicians to discredit support for Palestine by smearing all protestors as Islamists and anti semites.
As an ex-muslim, it is dishonest to say there no correlation between islamism and the arab 'palestine' sympathiser demonstrators. I would even estimate the intersectionalism between the 2 groups to be over 90%.
Okay so question: What do y'all think a caliphate is? While it's not something I'd expect most Europeans to support given the lack of separation of church and state and all that, "caliphate" is (to simplify) a state ruled by the laws of Islam, which while again aren't things most Europeans support (the lack of LGBT rights coming to mind) it's not like these people are trying to recreate ISIS.
Let's not pretend that religious stewardship of any state has ever not resulted in human rights abuses. The idea of a caliphate in Germany should rightly horrify the German people. Fundamentalist Islam (or Christianity) can easily cite scripture to justify child brides, executions, and domestic violence.
So let's flip the question; why aren't you horrified at the idea of a caliphate in Germany, and seemingly hand waving the atrocious results it would bring?
I'm not handwaving it; more saying that it seems like everyone in the comments is acting like they wanna kill all non-Muslims or something, with stuff like "this is what happens when you invite Muslims into your country" and shit.