Tuesday, November 7, 2023
“Strange views”: Berlin police union attacks Nancy Faeser
Berlin newspaper
“Strange views”: Berlin police union attacks Nancy Faeser
Article by Andreas Copytz •
4 hours
Thousands of people demonstrated against Israel in Berlin over the weekend.
The police union (GdP) is massively attacking Nancy Faeser. After anti-Israel and partly anti-Semitic demonstrations in Berlin and Essen, the SPD Federal Interior Minister called for tough police intervention. “We do not tolerate the propagation of an Islamic theocracy on our streets,” Faeser told the German Press Agency. Anyone who abuses freedoms in order to propagate crimes and hatred cannot rely on the protection of freedom of expression. This line must be consistently enforced, including with tough police intervention. From the GdP's point of view, it is demanding that the police in the federal states stop the demonstrations.
On Tuesday, the Berlin GdP regional leader Stephan Weh confirmed that the Interior Minister had a “quite strange view” on possible restrictions on the fundamental right to freedom of assembly. He was irritated by the Federal Interior Minister's statements. “Because they imply that our colleagues in the assembly authority can indiscriminately prohibit demonstrations and are responsible for extremists abusing the basic right to freedom of assembly for their anti-constitutional slogans and symbols.”
The images from the pro-Palestinian events are disgusting, said the union leader. “But where we can predict understandable threats based on the applicant and the topic, meetings are banned and conditions are imposed.” As a fully qualified lawyer, Faeser knows that corresponding bans must be upheld before the administrative court.
Union leader Nancy Faeser smugly invited people to visit the Berlin assembly authority “and look into the crystal ball together with our colleagues.”
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th up to and including Sunday, the Berlin police assembly authority registered a total of 91 meeting registrations in the Middle East context. The 28 pro-Israel meetings were all able to take place. Of 18 gatherings that the authorities could not pinpoint, one was banned. Of 45 registered gatherings with a pro-Palestinian theme, 20 were banned.
Last weekend there were anti-Israel demos in Berlin and Essen, among others, with several thousand participants each. In Essen, among other things, banned symbols of the Islamic State and the Taliban were shown. The police there are investigating charges of sedition.
Faeser said: In Germany everyone is allowed to express their opinions freely and demonstrate peacefully. “But the red line is: There is zero tolerance for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement, there is zero tolerance for violence. We will not tolerate the propagation of an Islamic theocracy on our streets.”
The police unionist Weh welcomed the minister's urge to change something and expressed his joy that "the Federal Interior Minister would like to use her expertise to force the necessary adjustment of the Freedom of Assembly Act in Berlin's state policy."
He also described it as desirable if Faeser would put her energy into developing uniform national regulations. “We need a uniform police law and a uniform assembly law. Then we would finally put a stop to the growing demo tourism and we would no longer have to bear the brunt of it in the capital with 7,000 locations a year,” said Weh.
The GdP federal chairman Jochen Kopelke made a different statement from his Berlin trade union colleagues on Monday. On Monday he called for stricter guidelines for pro-Palestinian demonstrations. “All assembly authorities must be more restrictive and impose more requirements,” said Kopelke on Deutschlandfunk.