Rainbow flags in hand, hundreds gathered on Sunday at the Brandenburg Gate to mourn the suspected Islamist attack near Berlin Pride – and to oppose any attempts by the far right to exploit the tragedy.
The minivan ramming late Saturday, which killed one person and injured dozens, came less than two months before Berlin elects a new state assembly, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) leading in some polls.
The party has benefitted from a sense of insecurity following a series of attacks in recent years, some by foreign perpetrators with Islamist motives.
Saturday’s attack marked the first time Berlin’s LGBTQ community has been targeted in such a way in a city long known for its openness.
Lena Werner, 26, said she attended Sunday’s vigil to show that the community “will not allow itself to be intimidated, to make our voice heard even louder, to demonstrate even greater solidarity.”
Pride organizers say homophobia is on the rise and Werner acknowledged that “the fear has grown.”
But she said she did not want Saturday’s attack to fuel “hatred against foreigners, or migrants, or Islam.”
‘Real Shift’
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt named the main suspect as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese origin known to the authorities for a “high number” of previous crimes and belonging to the “Islamist scene.”
The AfD quickly denounced what it called “a complete failure of the government’s security policies” following the attack.
“The AfD has been warning for years that Islamism is and remains the greatest security threat to our country,” party lawmaker Martin Hess said in a statement.
“We finally need a real shift in migration policy, because many Islamist attacks are linked to immigration and naturalisation policy,” he added.
‘Strong Resistance’
The attack “makes the situation worse, at a time when we can clearly see that Germany is increasingly leaning to the right,” Mario Paul, 46, said.
The anti-immigration AfD is hoping for record results in elections in Berlin and other regions in eastern Germany in September.
In Berlin, it is running neck-and-neck with the radical left Die Linke, the Greens and Chancellor Friedrich Merz‘s conservative CDU.
“Berlin will be left wing! Now more than ever!” Alex Friedrich, 51, told AFP at the vigil, sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with “FCK AFD” in rainbow letters.
He added he was convinced that LGBTQ people, who have “already endured so much in their lives,” would “not be pushed around” by the AfD, a party accused by some of hostility to LGBTQ rights and visibility.
Luka, a 23-year-old student, said she was attending the vigil to mourn, amid tight police security around the Brandenburg Gate square and on the Unter den Linden avenue leading up to it.
“I realize that in fact I’m not afraid to be here. Because it’s important to me to be here,” she told AFP.
Dressed in black, she said the far-right could “easily” instrumentalize the attack, but “I believe there will be strong resistance to this exploitation.”
