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.

  • quarry_coerce248@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago
    1. What law did they break? Police is investigating whether and which laws have been broken
    2. People have individual human rights, you can’t deport people for demonstrating nor for petty crimes
    3. You can’t deport German citizens and you have no evidence at all that the protesters were not German
    • Mopswasser@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      People will vote for parties who will pass laws that enable the state to act swiftly and harshly.

    • letmesleep@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      People have individual human rights, you can’t deport people for demonstrating nor for petty crimes

      But staying in Germany isn’t covered by human rights. German law already stipulates that anyone who endanger liberal democracy (freiheitlich demokratische Ordnung) can deported. No conviction necessary. Not even proof beyond reasonable doubt. Just a reasonable level of certainty that our interest in getting rid of them outweighs their interest in staying here.

      Foreigners whose stay endangers public safety and order, the free democratic basic order or other significant interests of the Federal Republic of Germany will be expelled if, after weighing the interest in their departure against their individual interest in remaining in the federal territory, taking into account all the circumstances of the particular case, there is an overriding public interest in the foreigners’ departure. §53

      We obviously need to distinguish here, some people may just have been naive and ended up in that protest accidentally, but for the rest: I really hope they throw the book at them. We always say “Nazis raus” (Nazis out) and I like that very much and here we have a case where we can actually deport quite a few de-facto nazis. Let’s just home enough of them aren’t citizens (the citizen thingy is a problem with the traditional Nazis).

      • quarry_coerce248@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Your quote does not support your statement. People have rights, and we have to uphold them. This absolutely has to be proven in a court, and if there is a shortcut around having a trial with evidence, then this is lawful but not right. “Endangering public safety” is not something that you decide based on reading articles online and having a gut feeling that they shouldn’t protest.

        • letmesleep@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          This absolutely has to be proven in a court,

          Of course there would be a court case, but not a necessity to prove beyond reasonable doubt. There are different levels of proof required in different scenarios. If a court sends someone to prison they need to prove with absolute certainty that this someone committed the crime. If they make someone pay for breach of contract they just need to make it reasonably certain that they breached the contract. Afaik deportation follows the latter pattern.

          “Endangering public safety” is not something that you decide based on reading articles online and having a gut feeling that they shouldn’t protest.

          Of course not. I wrote

          We obviously need to distinguish here

          Hence I obviously don’t want to just put everyone in that protest on a plane tomorrow. To me joining such a protest is a reason for suspicion. I.e. the authorities should start investigating these people and try to distinguish those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time from those who actually want to overthrow our democracy.