They pretend to protest against hate and hate speech – and in doing so they themselves bring hate and hate speech onto our streets!
On Saturday, 3,500 people followed the call by “Muslim Interactive” to Hamburg for a “rally against the burning of the Koran”. But the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution knows: The group wants to “enforce a society that is absolutely incompatible with our democracy,” says spokesman Marco Haase to BILD.
Participants hold copies of the Koran in the air – and the extended index finger, which is supposed to stand for the “one God” – a gesture popular with Salafists and jihadists
The extremists (11,500 followers on Instagram) would specifically address young Muslims – and abuse “socially relevant issues” to “spread their anti-democratic ideology”.
They would be close to the banned “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, an Islamist organization that wants a caliphate and u. behind the anti-Semitic march on Steindamm in May 2021.
A banner was hung on the stage reading: “Allah exalts people with this book and humbles others”.
Anti-Semitism Officer Stefan Hensel (43): “The organizers are not concerned with freedom of expression or freedom of religion, but with spreading extremist ideas.”
Islamism expert Mina Ahadi (66) warns: “There are too many Islamists in Germany who work very effectively. Such gatherings are dangerous.”
The extremists themselves show how backward-looking they are: women and men were separated, with space between them and a double row of folders around the women. Interior Senator Andy Grote (54, SPD) finds such elevators “intolerable” – “but intolerability is not a reason for prohibiting a meeting according to the Basic Law,” said Grote. “We keep the actors in focus!”
Incidentally, women were explicitly asked to come to the “rally” – but Islamists later discussed controversially on social networks whether their participation was appropriate – if gender separation could not be guaranteed.
Michael Breilmann (39), CDU interior expert in the Bundestag, sees, as does CDU Federal Deputy Carsten Linnemann (45), a “serious problem with political Islamism” and calls for the continuation of the corresponding expert group in the Federal Ministry of the Interior. CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach (70) is also concerned: “Especially in Hamburg there is a large Islamist scene.”
The spectators were divided: in the front are the men, in the back – surrounded twice by stewards – the women
It is also striking how tightly organized the group is – and how targeted it is presented online, especially on social media platforms for young people. The rally on Saturday, for example, was over after 1.5 hours – instead of three hours as announced. An insider suspects: “All the pictures were filmed and everything was in the box.”
Uli Grötsch (47), Islamism expert in the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, sees parallels in the staging of “Muslim Interaktiv” with the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement”, which advertises with right-wing ideologies and ensnares young people. Grötsch to BILD: “You have to clearly name who is meeting here – and watch the wolves in sheep’s fur closely.”
