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.

  • Rikudou_Sage
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    11 year ago

    It’s not at all like that. You wearing jeans is your style choice, I might like it or I might not, but ultimately it doesn’t concern me in any way. But your religion, well, that concerns me quite a lot. I don’t want to die when yet another muslim decides that their favorite child rapist should not be made a caricature of (funny how everyone was all “je suis Charlie”, seems quite forgotten now). Or that another good christian decides that the child rapist from the local church should be just moved to another church instead of turned over to authorities (next time he surely won’t rape any children). Or when the oh-so-devote christian nations decide that women should have no say over abortions.

    And I could go on, religion is cancer that’s destroying lives. No other cause than religion has killed more people in history of mankind. And it’s not like they didn’t try, especially Hitler and Stalin, but religion still wins. So yeah, I won’t be thrilled when Jews are scared to go out of their house here in EU because we’ve imported way too many muslims. If they want to live like pieces of shit, they can do so in their shitholes.

    • nakal
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      11 year ago

      There are many bad things to happen with jeans, too. There is child labor. There terrorists wearing jeans. There are other people I don’t like wearing them, too.

      Don’t mix up up extremism with things that are harmless. Have you ever been in a predominantly muslim country? I am regularly and I cannot confirm that all muslims are terrorists or even support them.

      • Rikudou_Sage
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        11 year ago

        What a coincidence that the ones protesting against Israel are mostly muslim then.

        • nakal
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          11 year ago

          Nazis historically don’t like religions and Israel especially.