The gratitude for the gratuitous commitment of the Christian believers “against the ‘right'” seems tremendous: shortly after an anti-AfD demonstration took place on the forecourt, “Allahu Akbar” was daubed in Arabic script on the Protestant St Paul’s Church in Hamm.
On January 22, more than 5,000 people are said to have bravely demonstrated “against the right” in Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia (for context: as of December 2022, Hamm had a population of 181,000). The spokesperson for the Protestant church district expressed his “happiness and pride” to the media: he is also the spokesperson for the “Round Table against Radicalism and Violence” and is organising the “Hamm Weeks against Racism” in March together with the “Hamm Network for Work Critical of Racism”. One event there will explicitly focus on “anti-Muslim racism”.
However, the people in Hamm are not receiving any thanks for their great commitment: A photo of graffiti on the wall of St Paul’s Protestant Church is currently spreading on social media. It reads “Allahu Akbar” in Arabic script.
The Hamm police confirmed the incident to “Apollo News” and stated that they could not yet provide any information on the perpetrator’s profile. The Protestant parish did not wish to comment. The lettering is said to have been removed in the meantime. The mainstream is not reporting. I wonder if the silence in the press would be just as deafening if a mosque had been graffitied?
Even if the police cannot or do not want to give any details about the perpetrator profile, critical observers will draw their conclusions in view of the Arabic lettering. Even the German Ministry of the Interior, which otherwise prefers to deal with the opposition and “right-wing extremism”, warned of a high danger from Islamists in Germany on the occasion of planned attacks on Christmas markets in December: President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Haldenwang stated that the danger was “real and higher than it has been for a long time”. The number of investigations initiated by the Federal Public Prosecutor General is expected to have almost doubled in 2023. Churches in particular are at risk from Islamist terrorist attacks: at the end of December, for example, terror warnings led to the temporary closure of Cologne Cathedral.
The website of the “Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe” reports almost daily on vandalism and attacks on churches as well as attacks on Christians who worship as Christians. Where known, the perpetrators are not only Islamists, but sometimes also left-wing extremists and supporters of LGBTQ groups… And thus precisely those to whom many church representatives want to cosy up in public.
Kurz nach Demo “gegen rechts”: Kirche in Hamm mit “Allahu Akbar” beschmiert (report24.news)