Admin I Saturday, May 04, 2024
BERLIN – Police in Berlin have launched numerous criminal cases after cracking down on a pro-Palestinian protest at Humboldt University on Friday even as anti-Muslim and anti-semitic protest rear head in Hamburg.
Protesters at the rally on Friday chanted the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a controversial phrase that Berlin police have sought to classify as anti-Semitic.
Police on Saturday said they opened 37 investigations on potential charges including incitement and resisting law enforcement officers.
A total of 38 protesters were detained by police at Friday’s rally, police said.
Around 150 protesters gathered at the university on Saturday, and demanded the use of a lecture hall for talks, which university management had refused.
Protesters sought to formally register the rally with authorities on Friday but their request was denied. Police ordered the protesters to refrain from anti-Semitic exclamations and began their crack down after the slogan “from the river to the sea” was chanted.
Protests against the Israeli’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and in support of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza have been taking place at numerous universities in the United States for more than two weeks.
Students have also recently occupied university campuses across Britain in protest against the war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Hamburg on Saturday to protest against Islamism and anti-Semitism and in support of the liberal values of Germany’s democratic constitutional order.
The demonstration in Hamburg was planned as a counter-rally to a march organized by Islamists last week which caused nationwide outrage. Participants in the Islamist march had made calls for a caliphate.
The caliphate as a form of rule originated after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD and refers to a system based on Islamic law. As the representative of Muhammad, the caliph acts as both a religious and secular ruler.
According to the police, around 800 people took part in the counter-rally. The organizers had expected up to 1,000.
“No one harms the Islamic religion and Muslims more than the Islamists themselves,” said Ali Ertan Toprak, the national chairman of the Kurdish Community advocacy group, which represents Kurds in Germany and which helped organize the rally.
At the same time, Toprak accused politicians of neglecting the problem of political Islam for too long for fear of anti-Muslim sentiment and leaving it to right-wing populists.
Toprak dismissed the extremists who had called for a caliphate at last week’s demonstration as “little wannabe trainee caliphs” and called on them to take down the preachers’ raised index finger.
A man wearing a headscarf caused a commotion at Saturday’s protest when he demonstratively raised his index finger after Toprak’s words in apparent sympathy with the Islamist demonstrators.
The man was led away by the police to the applause of the crowd.
