Media reports say more than 1,000 people participated in a demonstration in the northern German city on April 27, holding up posters with slogans like “Caliphate Is the Solution” and calling for the introduction of Sharia law.
Authorities said the demonstration was organized by people close to an organization called “Muslim Interactive,” a group which experts say rejects democracy and that domestic intelligence authorities classify as extremist.
Fox News reports that according to the organization's social media, the protest was meant to stand against the “demonization of all Islamic life in Germany.”
“We will raise our voices together, inshallah,” a translated post on X read. “Together against Islamophobic reporting, both in recent weeks and in recent months.”
According to Fox News, the Hamburg protests came as anti-Israel protests have intensified across the world, while the Israel-Hamas war inches towards its eighth month. In the U.S., protesters at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin and other schools have reportedly set up tents on their universities' quads as a sign of solidarity with Palestinians.
Politico reports that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday there must be “consequences” following an Islamist rally in Hamburg that sparked condemnation from politicians across the country.
“It is quite clear that all Islamist activities must be tackled using the possibilities and options of our constitutional state,” Scholz said at a press conference alongside the prime minister of Montenegro, Milojko Spajić.
“I believe that we must therefore also take a close look at the specific consequences to be taken from what we have seen there,” the chancellor said. Criminal acts, he added, “must be prosecuted.”
On Sunday, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reportedly vowed to take “tough action against Islamist terror propaganda and hatred against Jews.”
“If you want a caliphate,” she added, “you have come to the wrong place in Germany.”
