Category Archives: Germany

Germany: small party attracts small crowd for Wilders appearance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders with Freysinger and Stadtkewitzc
Wilders on the platform with Oskar Freysinger of the Swiss People’s Party and (right) René Stadtkewitz of Die Freiheit

Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders has hit out at both the EU and Islam at a small far-right German party in Berlin.

Amid tight security, the Dutch anti-Islam politician spoke at a gathering of Die Freiheit, led by René Stadtkewitz, widely seen as the German version of Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party. Mr Stadtkewitz accuses the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, of selling Germany to Europe. He also claims that most of Germany’s unemployed come from Muslim countries.

In his speech, Mr Wilders attacked the European Union and Islam, which he described as the two biggest threats. He stressed, however, that “Breivik is not one of us”. He was referring to the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik who invoked Mr Wilders as an inspiring example after killing 77 people in twin attacks in and near the capital Oslo in July. “We reject violence, we are democrats, we believe in peacefulness, we reject Islam for its violent character,” Mr Wilders said.

The meeting was attended by 600 people, far fewer than expected. Police had cordoned off the area around the hotel where it was held. Several hundred demonstrators protested against the meeting.

RNW, 3 September 2011

Die Freiheit had originally tried to charge €100 a seat for the meeting. Unable to attract sufficient interest at that inflated figure, the organisers were forced to slash the price to €5 in an attempt to fill the 1,000-capacity venue. All in vain, it would appear.

Author sees domestic Islamic threat to German justice system

Posted on by Bob Pitt

German law expert and former public TV investigative journalist Joachim Wagner presented a new book on Monday in which he speaks of a parallel justice system among the Muslim minority that undermines the rule of law in Germany.

The 236-page book, titled “Judges Without Law: Islamic Parallel Justice Endangers Our Rule of Law,” looks into the problems the German judiciary faces when investigating crimes committed within Muslim communities or clans in Germany.

Wagner says the “parallel justice system” is maintained by Islamic arbiters-cum-imams who settle crimes out of court without the involvement of German prosecutors or lawyers.

Deutsche Welle, 31 August 2011

Pro-Deutschland holds demonstration in Berlin

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Deutschland Pro Berlin demo August 2011

On Sunday the Islamophobic far-right organisation Bürgerbewegung pro Deutschland (Citizens’ Movement for Germany) staged a march in Berlin in support of its candidates for next month’s state elections.

The protestors brandished placards featuring a picture of a veiled Muslim woman with prison bars superimposed, accompanied by the slogan “Our women remain free”. Another placard which urged support for Pro Deutschland candidates on the basis that this was a vote for “Thilo’s theses” – a reference to Thilo Sarrazin’s best-selling anti-Muslim book Germany Abolishes Itself – had been the subject of a court order prohibiting the use of Sarrazin’s name, so the placards carried a sticker reading “censored” over the word “Thilos”.

Despite following what was billed as a national conference against the “Islamisation” of Germany the previous day, the protest a mere 120 participants, among them around 20 supporters of the neo-Nazi NPD.

German anti-racists mobilise against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The self-appointed “crusaders for a Western Christian Civilization” of the racist party “Pro Deutschland” (Pro Germany) intend to stage an “Anti-Islamist Congress” on 27 and 28 August 2011, in Berlin. Civil society protests have already prevented a similar racist congress from being held twice before in Cologne.

The Berlin branch of “Pro Köln” (Pro Cologne) is being used as a platform by former members of the “National Party of Germany” (NPD), the “German People’s Union” (DVU) and the “Republicans”. Out of all places they have chosen Berlin to rally support for a racist campaign intended to stir up hatred against migrants. They are hoping to repeat the election successes of other European right-wing populist parties in the Berlin state elections on 18 September 2011.

Another right-wing populist party called “Die Freiheit” (Freedom) is pursuing the same strategy. They have invited the racists Geert Wilders of “Partij voor de Vrijheid”/Party for Freedom (PVV), from the Netherlands; Oskar Frysinger of “Schweizerische Volkspartei”/Swiss People’s Party (SVP); and Robert Spencer of JihadWatch, USA to speak at their election rally on 03 September 2011, in Berlin.

Zusammen Handeln! (“Act As One! – Against Racist Agitation and Social Marginalization”) calls for protests against these events.

Pro Deutschland activists threaten and harass Lebanese man in Steglitz

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two campaign workers for the xenophobic Pro Deutschland party threatened and harassed a Lebanese man in the district of Steglitz on Wednesday, then attacked a plain-clothes policeman who tried to intervene.

The campaign workers, aged 42 and 50, were hanging campaign posters showing a mosque with a red line through it and a slogan urging people to support the ideas of Thilo Sarrazin, the former central banker and Berlin finance minister who has notoriously claimed Muslim immigrants are making Germany dumber.

A 32-year-old Lebanese man remonstrated with them over the message and their motives. The 42-year-old campaign worker then grabbed a hammer and threatened to “beat to death” the Lebanese man, police say.

A plain-clothes policeman who saw the confrontation from his car called for backup and then intervened, whereupon the 50-year-old attacked him with pepperspray.

The Local, 11 August 2011

Germany’s far right campaigns with xenophobic election posters

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berlin election posters

Germany’s extreme right-wing Nationalist Democratic Party (NPD) is using xenophobic election posters in its campaign for the Sept. 18 Berlin state elections.

One of the election posters that went up over the weekend has the words, “Have a nice journey to your home country”, with cartoon drawings of a woman with a headscarf, a man with a turban and a black man. A similar poster were used in earlier campaigns.

Another poster, portraying NPD Chairman Udo Voigt sitting on a motorcycle with the text “Give gas”, was reminiscent of the Nazi gas chambers and triggered outrage from many politicians.

An Internet site was also published in preparation for the far-right political party’s campaign. A video on its homepage shows a woman with a headscarf and the Turkish flag with the words: “We Germans have become foreigners in our own neighborhoods. How much more will we tolerate?”

Meanwhile, another political group named “Bürgerbewegung Pro Deutschland” is using center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) member and former member of the executive board of the Deutsche Bundesbank Thilo Sarrazin’s racist comments about Muslim immigrants living in Germany in its posters.

Today’s Zaman, 8 August 2011

Update:  Berliner Morgenpost reports that the Berlin District Court has issued a ruling prohibiting Pro Deutschland from using Sarrazin’s name on their poster.

Islamophobia: the new anti-semitism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Writing in the Palestine Chronicle Yuri Avnery notes the rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe which provided the context and inspiration for Breivik’s terrorist attacks:

I first became aware of the gravity of the situation when a friend drew my attention to some German anti-Islamic blogs.

I was shocked to the core. These outpourings are almost verbatim copies of the diatribes of Joseph Goebbels. The same rabble-rousing slogans. The same base allegations. The same demonization. With one little difference: instead of Jews, this time it is Arabs who are undermining Western Civilization, seducing Christian maids, plotting to dominate the world. The Protocols of the Elders of Mecca….

Many of the Islamophobic parties and groups remind one of the atmosphere of Germany in the early 1920s, when “völkisch” groups and militias were spreading their hateful poison, and an army spy called Adolf Hitler was earning his first laurels as an anti-Semitic orator. They looked unimportant, marginal, even crazy. Many laughed at this man Hitler, the Chaplinesque mustachioed clown.

But the abortive Nazi putsch of 1923 was followed by 1933, when the Nazis took power, and 1939, when Hitler started World War II, and 1942, when the gas chambers were brought into operation.

It is the beginnings which are critical, when political opportunists realize that arousing fear and hatred is the easiest way to fortune and power, when social misfits become nationalist and religious fanatics, when attacking helpless minorities becomes acceptable as legitimate politics, when funny little men turn into monsters.

Thilo Sarrazin told he’s not welcome in Kreuzberg

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarrazin rassist“Get lost!” and “Nazis out!” were among the epithets lobbed at controversial author Thilo Sarrazin during a recent trip to Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, according to newspaper reports on Monday.

The city’s former finance senator had taken a trip to the area with broadcaster ZDF to film a TV special ahead of the one-year anniversary of the publication of his controversial book, “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany Does Itself In”).

The memory of the book’s content, which sparked massive controversy in Germany for what many called its anti-immigrant sentiments, was apparently still fresh in the minds of some residents of the district, known for its high concentration of Muslim immigrants.

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Israeli deputy minister meets German neo-Nazi millionaire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Patrik BrinkmannDeputy Minister Ayoob Kara met with Swedish-German millionaire Patrik Brinkmann who has ties with German neo-Nazi groups in Berlin over the weekend,Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Brinkmann, who is trying to establish a far-right anti-Islamic party in Germany claims he is not an anti-Semite, however his previous close contacts with the German neo-Nazi party (NPD) and his past membership in another neo-Nazi party raise questions regarding his ideology.

Brinkmann, 44, made his fortune in the Swedish real estate business in the 1980s before becoming mixed in tax problems in his home country. As legal battles were going on he used the majority of his finances for the establishment of two research foundations which became closely affiliated with far-right and neo-Nazi elements in Germany.

The millionaire later began supporting the Pro NRW movement, Germany’s far-right and anti-Islamic party. He declared he fears that Sharia law will be introduced in the country and has pledged to establish a strong German right-wing party. He left the party last year in protest of its anti-Semitism, but resumed membership earlier this year. He now heads the party’s Berlin branch.

Brinkman visited Israel several months ago where he met Kara and announced his intention to promote one of his foundations in Israel. He met the deputy minister again in Berlin over the weekend as part of Kara’s private visit to the city’s World Culture Festival. Several months ago, Kara met with Austrian Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache who was once active in neo-Nazi groups.

Israel’s embassies in Berlin and Vienna have warned against such contacts. “Even if this is an alleged attempt to create an anti-Islamic European front, some of these elements seek to obtain an Israeli seal of approval without altering their anti-Semitic views,” an Israeli state official said.

The deputy minister said he was unaware of Brinkmann’s problematic connections with Germany’s neo-Nazi far-right movement, claiming this was “irrelevant.”

Ynetnews, 4 July 2011

See also Ayoob Kara’s meeting last month with Filip Dewinter of the Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang.