The city of Munich has banned a pro-Palestinian meeting planned for Friday evening. A spokeswoman for the district administration department (KVR) said on Friday that a ban was also being prepared for a pro-Palestinian gathering that was announced on Marienplatz on Saturday.
The city of Regensburg also wants to ban gatherings that are expected to “support or even celebrate the disgusting, inhumane attacks on Israel,” a spokeswoman said. These gatherings pose a threat to public safety and order, and the commission of criminal offenses is also to be expected.
In Augsburg, the administration does not want to impose a general ban, but points out strict requirements in case of doubt. Augsburg has a large Jewish community and stands firmly on the side of this community, a spokesman said. “We have a very low threshold for intervention against anything that disrupts this peace, especially given the current events in the world.”
In the Bavarian cities of Nuremberg, Ingolstadt and Würzburg, no pro-Palestinian gatherings were initially planned for the weekend, as the cities announced upon request. The administrations therefore initially did not provide any further information on how to deal with such demonstrations.
Munich’s mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) had already announced on Thursday evening at a solidarity rally in front of Munich’s Ohel Jakob Synagogue that he wanted to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the city in the future. According to the city, at one such demonstration on Monday in Munich, “anti-Semitic statements were made several times and statements that could also be seen as endorsement of the terrorist attacks.” Criminal proceedings had been initiated for insults and incitement to the detriment of the Jewish population.
For the ban that has now taken place, the city points to this gathering and a concrete threat to public safety. Mayor Reiter said: “I would like to thank the KVR for making it clear from now on that we will ban such demos in Munich. We will not tolerate hate speech against Israel, against Jews or calls for violence against our Jewish citizens or Jewish institutions.”
