An Islamist group with an extensive social media following and aligned with an actively antisemitic organization that seeks to establish an international Islamic caliphate organized the event.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), a state agency charged with safeguarding the postwar nation’s democratic institutions, has expressed concern about a radical Muslim organization after more than 3,500 Islamists rallied on Saturday in the port city of Hamburg.
The demonstrators — who were protesting the burning of a copy of the Qu’ran last month outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm by a far right politician — want to “enforce a society that is absolutely incompatible with our democracy,” Marco Haase, a spokesperson for the BfV, told the Bild news outlet.
The demonstration was organized by Muslim Interaktiv, an Islamist organization with an extensive social media following that is aligned with Hizb ut Tahrir, an actively antisemitic organization that seeks to establish an international Islamic caliphate.
Many of the demonstrators waved copies of the Qu’ran and displayed extended index fingers — an Islamist gesture meant to affirm the existence of one God. While women were invited to attend the demonstration, male and female participants were segregated at the event.
One local politician bemoaned the separation of men from women in a public place but said that “intolerance is not a reason” to ban a demonstration under the terms of Germany’s Basic Law, which protects against extremism.
Instead, it was important to “keep the actors in focus,” Andy Grote, a state senator for the center-left SPD Party, said.
Mina Ahadi, an Iranian expert on Islamism, told Bild that “there are too many Islamists in Germany who work very effectively.”
Ahadi warned that gatherings such as the demonstration in Hamburg were “dangerous.”
Nearly six million Muslims live in Germany, according to a government survey in 2020, constituting more than six percent of the population and amounting to one of the largest Muslim minorities in Europe.
The demonstration coincided with a statement of concern about rising antisemitism in Germany from the director of the memorial site at the former Buchenwald concentration camp.
Highlighting the return of “classic antisemitism,” Jens-Christian Wagner urged that conspiracy theories be countered with “properly sourced analysis of history.”