The German city of Hamburg saw over a thousand Muslims rally on Saturday against the freedom of the press and other liberal values of the country while calling for the imposition of an Islamic caliphate.
Around 1,100 gathered in the central Hamburg district of St. Georg — a progressive area of Germany’s second-largest city often identified as a gay neighbourhood — to demonstrate against what they perceived as an attempt by the media to portray all Muslims in Germany as radical Islamists.
However, the rhetoric reported from the event indicated the radical positions of the group itself, with chants of Allahu Akbar (God is great or Our God is greater than yours). Meanwhile, signs at the rally declare that a “Caliphate is the solution” and others read: “Germany = dictatorship of values”, NTV reports.
The rally was also attended by members of the Muslim Interactive group, a successor to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamic fundamentalist political party seeking to institute a caliphate which was officially banned in Germany in 2003 for extremism.
Muslim Interaktiv, which was founded in 2020, previously organised a demonstration in St. Georg in October in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, despite the city placing bans on anti-Israel demonstrations at the time. The group has also been active outside of Germany, having organised a February 2023 protest against Qur’an burnings in Sweden.
Hamburg’s Interior Senator Andy Grote cited Muslim Interaktiv earlier this month as being part of a new generation of Islamist radicals using social media to spread their messages to the youth of Germany.
The report noted that despite apparently violating some of the principles of Islam, the influencers often using top of the line video editing with a “very professional appearance” as well as using sports cars and luxury brands in an apparent effort to gain more interest in their Islamist message.
Senator Grote said that since attempting to take over the streets of Hamburg in October, local officials have launched a crackdown on the group, saying: “We responded with consistent prosecution, including searches, and some social media channels were shut down on the initiative of the security authorities.”
However, young Muslims in Germany are apparently still susceptible to the Islamist worldview. A survey of grade nine Muslims around the age of 15 this month found that nearly half (45.8 per cent) believe that an Islamic theocracy is the best possible government, while over two-thirds said the rules of the Qur’an were more important than the laws of Germany.