The U.K. High Court issued an “incoherent” ruling on the question of whether gender-confused individuals have to use the bathroom associated with their biological sex.
On Friday, February 13, a High Court judge dismissed a legal challenge from a pro-LGBT group on the question of which bathrooms people who identify as transgender are allowed to use.
However, the ruling of Mr. Justice Swift left some things unclear and was rightly described as “incoherent” by pro-LGBT groups.
In a landmark ruling in April 2025, the Supreme Court decided that “transgender women” are not female in the eyes of the law and that the term woman legally only refers to those of biological female sex.
In response, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued guidelines on the use of bathrooms and changing facilities for “transgender people.” It said that “trans women,” i.e., males, would be required to use a gender-neutral or male toilet but not female ones. These interim guidelines were withdrawn six months later, and the final version is still being considered by the government.
Pro-LGBT legal group The Good Law Project challenged the guidelines, claiming they were “legally flawed” and “overly simplistic.”
The High Court judge dismissed the argument that having to use a gender-neutral toilet could amount to “less favourable treatment.”
However, he also said that service providers are not “required” to let “transgender persons” only use those bathrooms corresponding with their biological sex.
Swift stated that those who provide bathroom or changing facilities should comply with the law but also be “guided by common sense and benevolence rather than allow themselves to be blinkered by unyielding ideologies,” leaving room for different interpretations.
According to the reading of the pro-LGBT Trans Solidarity Alliance, “The legal situation for trans people, employers, and service providers is now completely incoherent. What bathroom a trans person can use in a pub may now depend (on) whether they are there as an employer or for a drink.”
The U.K. group Sex Matters, which supports the recognition of biological reality, urged the government on Friday to issue the final guidance “without delay.”
“The law is clear,” Sex Matters chief executive May Forstater said. “There was never any excuse for the government, public bodies, regulators, charities or businesses to delay in implementing the Supreme Court judgement.”
EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson welcomed the court’s finding that the guidance was lawful. However, the organization seemed torn between the two sides of the argument as they attempt to correspond with the Supreme Court’s ruling while also trying to champion the rights of the “trans community.”
“It’s our job to champion everyone’s rights under the Equality Act, including those with the protected characteristics of sex, sexual orientation and gender reassignment,” Stephenson said. “A shared and correct understanding of the law is essential to that endeavor.”
Politicians from Germany’s governing coalition are demanding “location patriotism” from German entrepreneurs. We learn something instructive: at the moment when political hubris begins to collapse, even the architects of the culture war reach for tried-and-tested bourgeois vocabulary to defend their power.
As social glue and as a bond tying the individual to a higher purpose of existence, patriotism has acquired a dubious reputation in Germany after decades of culture war. The United Left has succeeded in amalgamating this binding and integrating cultural ferment with the historical catastrophes of National Socialism, imperialism, and chauvinism, ultimately banishing it from the nation’s self-understanding.
Today, the patriot is regarded as a social outsider, a contrarian, an intolerant antagonist of humanistic values.
The mills of that socialist cultural revolution set in motion in the late 1960s have ground with care. A cartel of radical ideologues, opportunistic politicians, a proliferating academic establishment, and the media sector has managed to inject a sufficient dose of poison into the root system of tradition, religion, family, and the bourgeois order. The modern patriot renders himself deeply suspect if he rejects the blessings of cultural relativism and the woke nihilism of our age.
And yet conservatives are the true heroes of stability and continuity, who — like human breakwaters in today’s social storms — attempt to fend off the worst flowing toward us from the murky sources of Cultural Marxism. It was not least the work of German politicians to carry out this civilizational turn: away from the Social Market Economy and a bourgeois-centered society toward a green climate socialism.
Nowhere does the anti-bourgeois reflex flourish more luxuriantly than in Germany’s NGO complex and in the shrill academic flank warfare surrounding cancel culture, wokeism, and the cleansing of language — precisely targeting those terms that would open the door to a culture-affirming, tradition-confirming education.
How beautiful words like “fatherland,” “patriotism,” and “love of homeland” now sound.
Naturally, a significant portion of the political class would vehemently disagree. It has built a business model from the ingredients of contempt for the nation, globalist moralism, and climate-apocalyptic transformation logic — and founded its political existence upon it. Contempt for everything conservative is the linguistic soil in which this form of political power thrives, stabilizing and reinforcing itself within its own moral echo chamber.
That, in this self-inflicted crisis, German politicians now invoke the once-poisoned term of “location patriotism” in their defensive struggle against economic reality appears grotesque — and to those who have lost their livelihoods in the breakers of green bureaucratism, presumptuous and offensive.
Germany’s environment minister, Carsten Schneider, concluded his recent interview marathon with a talk at the Frankfurter Rundschau. The man has nerve. After a series of very public attacks by his camp against entrepreneurs, it now seems time to change tone. Moral minor key is on Berlin’s agenda. Automakers, Schneider suggests, should increasingly source raw materials from Germany. Raw materials — from Germany?
He calls for a “lead market” for green steel — stretching reality to its limits, as green steel currently vanishes from product lines because it is neither profitable nor marketable, despite heavy subsidies.
A little more location patriotism can surely be expected from German CEOs, Schneider argues — closely echoing the tone of his party leader and finance minister, Lars Klingbeil.
Klingbeil struck a similar chord at a union congress of IG BCE in Hanover last October. More location patriotism — more daring for Germany? After all, the state has provided tax relief and subsidies to strengthen the location and its companies. Is the state to play King Lear in this drama? The destroyer of capital, tax collector, and regulator par excellence?
It is a cynical media game the political class is playing with a population already in fragile spirits. When things deteriorate and policymakers hit a wall, strategies merge: patriotic appeals now oscillate with resentment and envy debates — emotional triggers designed to activate the image of the greedy, rootless entrepreneur, allowing politicians to step out of the line of fire. Outrage becomes a mobilization strategy; moral pressure, a media placebo.
The chancellor himself now regularly reaches for this blunt instrument, driven by poor poll numbers and looming political turbulence. “I am proud of our country,” declares Friedrich Merz, rebranding a culturally eroded and economically bleeding Germany into a communal experience infused with the rhetoric of renewal and freedom.
One can only speculate about the emotional stirrings of the chancellor as he strides through the opulent halls of the Federal Chancellery. Aware that Germany’s governing apparatus — its bureaucratized parliamentarianism and the self-representation of the executive — slowly but steadily approaches, at least in scale and architectural self-staging, dimensions reminiscent of Chinese conditions, the repeated echo of his own voice in endless corridors may well generate a certain well-tempered pride in career achievement.
In starkest contrast to the modest chancellery of the old Bonn Republic, today’s Federal Chancellery symbolizes statism, distance, and elevation.
Media maneuvers such as demanding corporate location patriotism are performative acts of ostentatious helplessness. They aim to channel public mood, deflect the question of responsibility away from policymakers, and stabilize the coalition ahead of crucial state elections.
Yet Berlin’s spin doctors may be mistaken. Friedrich Merz and his colleagues will learn that patriotism cannot be activated by chancellery decree. They may also discover that few Germans, without external pressure, will answer a call to defend a political system that — after years of mass migration, cultural erosion, and ideological restructuring — now asks its citizens to support further ideologically charged projects.
As for entrepreneurs, there seem to be few who still trust politics to resolve an ideologically distorted situation rationally. Patriotism, once the final convincing anchor tying companies to their homeland, has been driven out of Germans in a decades-long purgatory of progressive self-righteousness. Something better than a German insolvency death can now be found almost anywhere.
The state branch of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Lower Saxony has been officially classified as a “right-wing extremist organisation”, opening the door to further state surveillance of its officials.
Lower Saxony Interior Minister Daniela Behrens announced in Hanover on Monday that the AfD state branch had been classified as an extremist group, while claiming that so-called right-wing extremism represents the “greatest threat” to German society.
However, rather than detailing any specific plots to overthrow the government or any violent intent, the left-wing Social Democrat politician merely cited publicly espoused positions on issues such as immigration.
“It treats our state and our democratic institutions with contempt. People with migratory backgrounds are made into second-class citizens. It unapologetically propagates the so-called ‘remigration’ of millions of people from the heart of our society. This is again proven. The continuation of surveillance by the Lower Saxony [Office for the Protection of the Constitution] is a logical consequence given this backdrop,” Behrens said in comments reported by state broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Local branches of the AfD are already classified as “right-wing extremist organisations” in four other German states, including Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The branches in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland were also classified as such; however, the designations are on hold while under legal appeal.
This situation is similar to the one that the party faces at the national level as well, with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) announcing last year that it considered the party as a whole a right-wing extremist organisation. However, during the appeal process, the classification is not yet official, and the party has consistently dismissed the move as a bid by the left to weaponise the machinery of the state against them.
The move to classify the AfD in Lower Saxony comes despite the party currently standing as the third-largest party in the state, having won 11 per cent of the vote in 2022.
The AfD also currently stands as the second most popular party in Germany, with the most recent polling from the RTL/NTV barometer finding that 25 per cent of the public support the anti-mass migration party, compared to 20.8 per cent at last year’s elections. Meanwhile, the government leading Union, comprising the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), stands at 26 per cent.
The coalition partner, the Social Democrats, currently trails the AfD by over 10 points, with its support collapsing to just 14 per cent, down from 16.4 per cent in last year’s elections and 25.7 per cent in the 2021 general election. Rounding out the field, the Greens currently stand at 12 per cent, and the Left Party is in fifth position at 10 per cent.
The decision to brand the branch as an extremist organisation comes amid a national debate over the potential outright ban of the AfD, as has been suggested by top leftist politicians. However, briefingSüddeutsche Zeitung on Monday, intelligence officials warned against an immediate ban. Not out of concern for German democracy, but rather because it may disrupt their covert investigations into the party, allegedly including infiltration of the party’s leadership apparatus.
However, there have been moral arguments raised against the push to ban one of the nation’s top political parties. Over the weekend, Bild columnist Harald Martenstein excoriated leftist proponents of banning the AfD, arguing that they represented the true threat to German democracy.
In a mock trial at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg over whether the AfD should be banned, Martenstein said: “The crucial question is whether such a party pursues legitimate or illegitimate goals. It is not a question of whether you or I consider these goals to be right. Illegitimate goals would include, for example, the elimination of freedom of expression, the deprivation of fundamental rights for segments of the population, or the banning of parties deemed disruptive by those in power. Illegitimate goals are therefore precisely the goals you advocate.”
The veteran journalist noted that history is replete with examples of people using the justification of “saving democracy” to punish their political opponents and thus undermine the very thing they claim to want to protect, citing the “Anti-Rightist Campaign” under Communist Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, which saw millions arrested and imprisoned in labour camps, while transforming the country into an effective single party state.
“You know there are some differences between Heinrich Himmler and Alice Weidel. An openly lesbian woman like Alice Weidel, who was involved with someone of a different race, would have ended up in a concentration camp under the Nazis. Anyone who calls all right-wingers Nazis just because they aren’t left-wingers is truly historically illiterate. But that would be forgivable, I think. Ignorance isn’t a crime. What I accuse you of is knowing what you’re doing. You know that you’re not trying to prevent the Fourth Reich, but merely to eliminate your political competition.”
Police arrested and visited a Christian pastor’s home after he peacefully commented on Islam and transgender ideology while street preaching in Bristol city center.
Pastor Dia Moodley, 58, was arrested by Avon and Somerset Police officers last November in Broadmead on suspicion of “inciting religious hatred” under the Public Order Act 1986 for his speech, despite the fact that he had merely publicly shared his Christian views.
BREAKING: Police arrest Christian pastor and visit his home after he commented on Islam and trans ideology while street preaching in Bristol.
Dia Moodley was arrested on suspicion of “inciting religious hatred”.
The pastor, who suffers from a heart condition, was held in a police cell for eight hours before being released under censorial bail conditions banning him from entering and therefore preaching in Bristol city center over the Christmas period.
The bail conditions were dropped after Moodley made representations to the police, but two police officers later visited his home on Thursday, January 8, questioned him further on the November incident, and invited him to a voluntary interview under caution.
With the support of his legal team, Moodley is considering whether to attend the interview. The pastor is currently waiting to hear whether he will be criminally charged for his peaceful speech.
ADF International is providing legal support to Pastor Moodley, who is considering legal action against the police for the violation of his free speech rights.
This is the second time Avon and Somerset Police officers have arrested Moodley for peacefully street preaching.
In March 2025, the pastor was twice threatened with arrest for “breaching the peace,” after preaching about the differences between Christianity and Islam while holding a Quran.
He was the victim of assault on that occasion by Muslim bystanders and one man even threatened to stab the pastor. The police have not charged any of the individuals who assaulted him.
The pastor met with the U.S. State Department prior to that incident in March, at a meeting facilitated by ADF International, and spoke about his experience as a victim of censorship in the U.K.
Pastor Moodley said:
This latest arrest has had a profoundly negative effect on me and has been extremely challenging personally.
I am a law-abiding citizen and it feels surreal that the police have criminalized me so harshly and repeatedly merely for peacefully expressing my Christian views in the public square.
Unfortunately, I believe that the police view me, a Christian pastor, as an easy target and are afraid of others being offended by my lawful speech. This is two-tier policing in action.
Legal counsel for ADF International Jeremiah Igunnubole said:
Pastor Dia’s arrest for peacefully commenting on Islam and transgender ideology shows police are using public order legislation to impose de facto blasphemy laws in the U.K.
This is far from an isolated incident. It is part of a clear pattern of behavior from Avon and Somerset Police, who for years have targeted Pastor Dia for his peaceful expression in the public square and have failed in their duty to investigate serious crimes committed against him, by those who objected to his speech.
The police must stop their two-tier approach of criminalizing lawful speech. There has long been a pressing need for Parliament to pass legislation to ensure the right to freedom of expression is robustly protected in this country.
Pastor Dia’s case is all the more pressing as the government finalizes its broad and ambiguous definition of “anti-Muslim hatred,” which risks censoring legitimate speech related to Islam.
Pastor Dia’s case shows how authorities can misconstrue peaceful comments on Islam as “hateful” and criminal. This misconstruction will be repeated unless clarity is provided to preserve the ability of citizens to peacefully comment, discuss and criticize in accordance with their core beliefs.
After Pastor Moodley’s first arrest in March 2024, the police also unlawfully instructed that his signs, which he used while street preaching, be destroyed. The police have failed to even acknowledge his formal request for compensation for the signs.
Previously, police tried to censor Moodley from commenting on any religion besides Christianity while street preaching. Avon and Somerset Police dropped these restrictions and admitted they were “disproportionate” after Moodley launched a legal challenge with the support of ADF International.
November 2025 arrest
On November 22, Moodley was engaging in street preaching in Bristol city center on two topics: the reality of the sex binary and the falsehood of transgender ideology, and the theology of Christianity compared to other religions, including Islam.
He often engages in dialogue with members of the public during street preaching and the vast majority of his interactions are positive, even if the people he speaks with hold different views.
On the day, Moodley had a respectful conversation on Islam with three young Muslim women.
Later on, one couple objected to Moodley’s views on transgender ideology.
The woman called the police and two officers then arrived and solely focused on the accounts of bystanders who objected to the pastor’s preaching.
The police refused to engage with the pastor and members of his congregation and hear their account of what had happened.
The police then arrested Moodley on suspicion of “inciting religious hatred” and committing a “religiously aggravated” offence under the Public Order Act 1986, for peacefully expressing his Christian views.
The pastor has a heart condition and was sweating visibly due to the stress of the situation.
He asked for the handcuffs to be placed at the front of his body and not behind his back, which would make it difficult for him to breathe. The police officer initially appeared annoyed and reluctant to consider the request but eventually agreed.
Pastor Moodley was held in a police cell for eight hours before being released.
The bail conditions initially imposed on Moodley banned him from entering the city center until December 30.
These were only overturned on December 17 and prevented him from preaching in the busiest part of the city for most of December, stopped him from attending to an important pastoral matter, and disrupted his personal life.
Read more about Avon and Somerset Police’s past targeting of Pastor Moodley here, here, and here.
Epstein with an earlier plane, before the ‘Lolita Express’ – DOJ
Sex traffickers’ entry gate?
The UK is reeling over the allegations that the Jeffrey Epstein trafficking ring would have used Stansted airport with impunity, trafficking women into Britain.
The issue has even been taken up by a former Prime Minister who is calling for a full investigation.
By now, Essex Police has said it is ‘assessing information’ about private flights coming and going from Stansted Airport, after it was featured in the US DOJ’s Epstein files.
This ‘assessing information’ ruse may well mean that the whole business will be quashed.
In fact, the story of Epstein’s airplanes is a saga in itself:
🚨🇺🇸 EPSTEIN FILES: PILOT WARNED EPSTEIN THAT PLANE HE WAS CONSIDERING WAS A FORMER CIA "TORTURE PLANE"
A 2017 email from Larry Visoski, Epstein's longtime pilot, flagged concerns about a plane they were looking to use.
But today, we want to focus on the latest developments regarding this ‘assessing the information’, which is NOT the equivalent of the opening of an investigation.
NEW: Now a THIRD police force is looking into claims in the Epstein files. @EssexPoliceUK says it is “assessing the information that have emerged in relations to private flights into and out of Stansted Airport”. @ThamesVP and @SurreyPolice are also “assessing” information…
“Last year a BBC investigation found 87 flights linked to the convicted sex offender had arrived at or departed from UK airports between the early 1990s and 2018.
Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in the New Statesman last week that police ‘urgently’ need to re-examine whether Jeffrey Epstein’s victims were trafficked within and outside of the UK.”
Gordon Brown said he had discovered evidence of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking network in Britain, with girls arriving at Stansted airport from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia.
Writing in the New Statesman, the former prime minister said “at least one” of these flights was linked to… pic.twitter.com/KXQhFI9IbZ
“An Essex Police spokesperson said: ‘We are assessing the information that has emerged in relation to private flights into and out of Stansted Airport following the publication of the US DOJ Epstein files’.”
Three British victims allegedly trafficked appear in Epstein’s records of flights in and out of the UK.
Epstein and his trusted lieutenant Sarah Kellen with what appears to be a starter plane with his monogram and flames painted on it – DOJ
Former PM Brown said the ‘scale of trafficking’ would ‘become apparent’ if an investigation is conducted into these flights.
“He added that Stansted, located around 40 miles away from central London, was one of the airports ‘where women were transferred from one Epstein plane to another’.
Stansted Airport said all private aircraft use entirely independent terminals not operated by Stansted, and the airport does not manage or have any visibility of passenger arrangements on privately operated aircraft.”
BREAKING: Essex police are assessing private flights into and out of Stansted Airport over Epstein ties.
Arsonists set fires on both the altar and near the entrance front of the historic St. Peter Catholic Church in Huttenheim last month.
On January 28, unidentified individuals set two fires in the 18th-century, Baroque-style church, one on the altar cloth and another on a table in the front of the church with a set of brochures, per German media. A woman inside the church and several passersby quickly spotted the flames and extinguished them before authorities arrived, with the fire ultimately causing no major damage but will still cost an estimated 8,000 Euros to repair.
Police are still searching for the arsonists as of this writing.
Several locals expressed surprise that vandals would set fire to a sacred space like a church.
“You are always shocked when arson takes place in a church,” Philippsburg Mayor Stefan Martus told German newspaper Badische Neueste Nachrichten (BNN).
“It is extremely regrettable that there are people who no longer hold anything sacred. Whether in the church, graves in the cemetery, or other property of strangers,” he added.
“We are disturbed that something like this could happen in the church,” Thomas Barth, a Catholic economist, said. “For us as Catholics, it is shocking that someone could have so little regard and respect for the church.”
Indeed, arson attacks on Catholic and other Christian churches have skyrocketed across Europe in recent years. OIDAC Europe’s (Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe) 2025 report showed that the number of arson attacks on churches and other Christian buildings doubled in 2024 compared with the previous year, with 94 reported cases.
Germany had the highest number of documented arson attacks at 33. Numerous German churches continued to be attacked in 2025. In September alone, the Diocese of Passau reported that 15 churches were targeted by theft and vandalism.
“We usually have about 15 to 20 burglaries in a whole year, and now we currently only have 15 cases in the month of September,” Josef Sonnleitner, the diocese’s finance director, said at the time.
Within the last year alone, there have been several incidents of vandalism and desecration at notable European churches. A November incident in Lourdes, France, saw the entrance of the Sacré-Cœur parish, among the city’s principal places of worship outside its renowned Marian sanctuary, vandalized with graffiti containing the sacrilegious expressions “À mort Jésus-Christ” (“Death to Jesus Christ”), and the right-hand side carried the words “Sale race de Jésus-Christ” (“Dirty race of Jesus Christ”).
That same month, in Rome, human feces were found at various parts of San Nicola di Bari Church (St. Nicholas of Bari) in Ostia, including the altar. Within the same week, urine and human excrement were also found in multiple corners of a Catholic chapel, including the altar, at the Termini Railway Station, Rome’s main train station, which frequently draws Catholic pilgrims traveling to the Eternal City.
Last February in the Vatican, a man jumped onto the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica and kicked off the historic candelabra along with the altar cloths. Then in October, another man urinated on the basilica’s high altar during Mass.
The TV programme ‘Bürgeranwalt’ showed that a lorry could no longer drive up to the company because of parked cars. Screenshot / ORF ON
A suddenly removed ‘loading zone’ in front of a business on Koloniestraße in Vienna’s Floridsdorf district made headlines on the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ORF) programme ‘Bürgeranwalt’ (Ombudsman) thanks to Ombudsman Christoph Luisser. The programme raised suspicions that the nearby Islamic Cultural Centre needed parking spaces. Was a ‘loading zone’ stolen from a business owner with 20 employees because a nearby mosque demanded parking space for its visitors? The Ombudsman’s Office had evidence that a neighbouring mosque was behind the residents’ complaint that led to the removal of the loading zone, Luisser said on the ‘Bürgeranwalt’ programme on February 14.
The representative of the MA 46 (transport affairs) authority did not contradict this account, but said that it was not actually a loading zone that had been removed, but a delivery zone. This had been set up to improve visibility at the intersection. However, following measures taken by the transport authority, this delivery zone was no longer necessary. ‘That’s not true,’ said Stefan Just, managing director of Franz Just & Söhne, on the ‘Bürgeranwalt’ programme. Since the delivery zone was removed, there have already been two accidents at this intersection.
For Stefan Just, the situation following the dissolution of the delivery zone is unacceptable. Lorries have to stop in the second lane when making deliveries, and it is dangerous for employees to leave the company premises due to poor visibility caused by parked cars. Just said that when he asked the City of Vienna why the ‘loading zone’ had been closed without notice, he was told that his company had not existed for 20 years anyway. In fact, however, the man has been supplying the City of Vienna, among others, to date and has always paid municipal tax to the municipal authority over the past 20 years!
The entrepreneur (a fourth-generation stamp factory) now has to fork out a lot of money for the incomprehensible actions of MA 46. According to the transport authority, Mr Just would have to pay €4,000 for signs and road markings for the newly requested delivery zone, which would be approved. ‘There is currently a wave of bankruptcies sweeping the country, so a business-friendly approach towards a family business that has been in existence since 1912 would be appropriate,’ demanded Ombudsman Luisser.
The case is also causing a stir in the Floridsdorf district of Vienna. FPÖ district party chairman and member of the state parliament Wolfgang Irschik told unzensuriert:
The fact that the City of Vienna apparently assumes that a business has closed down, even though it has been in operation for decades, is a bureaucratic farce. This incident also fits in with the scandalous destruction of parking spaces by the red-pink city government.
Berlin’s police union representatives have pushed back against the local Green Party’s election pledge to abolish the city’s neutrality law and permit police officers to wear headscarves on duty, warning that such a move would blur the line between personal faith and state authority.
Angélique Yumusak, women’s representative of the German Police Union, sharply criticized the proposal in comments to the Berliner Kurier, arguing that visible religious symbols have no place in policing.
“Headscarves have absolutely no place in the police force. Religion and state must be kept strictly separate,” she said.
“Women who choose to wear this religious symbol of their own free will are free to do so in our country,” she said, but warned, “They have no place in a uniform. Anyone who chooses this profession knows the rules. I’m applying for a job, and the requirements are very clearly defined.”
„Das Kopftuch hat in der Polizei überhaupt nichts zu suchen. Religion und Staat sind ganz streng auseinanderzuhalten", sagt Angélique Yumusak, DPolG-Frauenbeauftragte im #BerlinerKurier. Wer Uniform trage, repräsentiere den Staat – nicht sich selbst 1/3 https://t.co/OAZLh6Zcna
“Ideologies regarding religion are particularly pronounced here,” she said, warning that such a move could affect police operations in a city already fractured by political and religious tensions.
In further comments from the German Police Union Berlin (DPolG), published on social media, the organization said the “headscarf-Islam obsession of the Berlin Greens is counterproductive for women. It suggests a moral code exclusively for women.
“It is not in the interest of the state, but rather a fatal sign for our democracy, to use patriarchal oppression for votes,” it added.
The renewed debate follows the Green Party’s election platform, which calls for the abolition of Berlin’s neutrality law governing religious symbols in public service. In its manifesto, the party writes, “We want to enable all people to live their religious convictions publicly and without discrimination,” adding that, “Regarding the neutrality law, we are following the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court and will finally abolish it.”
The neutrality law still applies to police officers and members of the judiciary, even after recent legal changes affecting schools. In 2023, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court overturned a blanket ban on teachers wearing headscarves, and since December, teachers in Berlin have officially been permitted to wear them in classrooms.
Berlin’s governing CDU and SPD have so far defended maintaining neutrality requirements for police and courts, arguing that visible religious symbols could undermine public trust in state impartiality.
Internal police estimates have found that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s amnesty scheme for illegal migrants could see more than double the number of people granted residency than the Socialist-led coalition government has told the public.
A risk analysis paper produced by Spain’s National Immigration and Borders Centre ( CNIF ) in conjunction with the General Immigration and Borders Commissariat of the National Police has warned that up to 1.35 million illegal migrants may be granted residency under amnesty plans announced by Madrid last month.
This comes in contrast to public proclamations from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who wrote in the New York Times that the scheme would see around 500,000 illegals granted amnesty.
The CNIF report, published by the El Confidencial news website, predicted that between 750,000 and one million illegals currently present in Spain could receive residence permits under the plan, while a further 250,000 to 350,000 asylum seekers could also attempt to gain residency.
It comes on top of warnings that the amnesty plan could act as a “pull factor” for more prospective illegals. Concerns have also been raised that illegals living in other EU nations may seek to gain a Spanish residence permit, which would allow them to remain in their country of choice in the internal open borders Schengen zone.
The CNIF further warned that, on top of the residence permits handed out, the amnesty could increase overall immigration to the country due to an “international perception of Spain as a more permissive country with irregular immigration,” noting that the amnesty plan has already seen a “very intense media impact, especially in Latin America.”
The move by the Socialist prime minsiter comes despite widespread public opposition to the amnesty plan, with a survey last week from pollster SocioMétrica finding that nearly seven in ten Spaniards are opposed to granting illegals residence permits.
Opposition is fiercest among the youngest cohort of voters, who will face the most significant ramifications, including lower wages and higher housing costs. According to the poll, over 89 per cent of Spaniards between 17 and 35 are opposed to the plan.
However, the left is apparently unconcerned by the backlash, with the radical Podemos party hailing the “replacement” of native conservatives with foreign migrants, while vowing to fight for migrants to be given the right to vote in federal elections regardless of citizenship.
Podemos MEP said: “I wish for replacement theory, I wish we could sweep this country of fascists and racists with migrants, with working people… Of course, I want there to be replacement: replacement of fascists, replacement of racists, replacement of freeloaders, and that we can do it with working people, whatever their skin colour may be.”
