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.
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.
I also don’t see how it helps analyse and prevent the causes of these antisemitic feelings in any of the groups. Though it often feels like nobody is even really trying to seriously prevent it anyway, especially not the people complaining the loudest about antisemitism.
So you’d put them all together? Say in a bucket?
The people in this rally demonstrated for the erection of a caliphate in Germany. So yeah, let’s just put them in a bucket “hateful, awful, dumb, don’t support”.
A bucket it is then!
The point is that this rally isn’t the only one. And putting everyone from all rallies in the same bucket isn’t fine.