Pierre Vogel (photo on the right) , a radical Islamist preacher, has been training children at the boxing club ‘Fight Club Bergheim’ since 2023. He explains his motives in a YouTube video.
Pierre Vogel, a well-known Islamist preacher, has been working as a trainer for children at the ‘Fight Club Bergheim’ boxing club since 2023. Born in Frechen, he trains children between the ages of four and ten, as he explains in a YouTube video. ‘For me, children’s training is primarily about building them up physically,’ says Vogel in a video that was released at the beginning of February. The ‘Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger’ had previously reported. An enquiry to t-online about Pierre Vogel’s job as a boxing coach at ‘Fight Club Bergheim’ has so far gone unanswered.
Pierre Vogel, who also appears under the name ‘Abu Hamza’, is an influential figure in the German Salafist scene. His activities have been the focus of the authorities for more than a decade. Following his conversion to Sunni Islam in 2001, he is categorised as an ‘extremist Salafist preacher’ by the North Rhine-Westphalia Office for the Protection of the Constitution (NRW) in the current ‘Situation Report on Islamism’. He is also mentioned several times in the NRW 2023 report on the protection of the constitution.
In a section on ‘Salafism and lifestyle’, it states: ‘Extremist Salafists boast of martial arts experience and contacts with organised crime or the clan milieu and cultivate a consumption-oriented, materialistic lifestyle, which they demonstratively flaunt on social media.’ He continues: ‘Younger people in particular are sometimes fascinated by the role models propagated and can find access to extremist Salafism through this.’
Pierre Vogel has also been appearing at rallies since 2010. Most recently, he promoted the ‘What next?’ project, which aims to distribute religious leaflets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Vogel himself compared this project to the banned ‘Lies!’ campaign from 2011.
Köln: Salafist Pierre Vogel trainiert Kinder im “Fight Club Bergheim” (t-online.de)