In front of Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall), the seat of the city’s mayor, nearly 400 men—many of them reportedly Syrian refugees—publicly celebrated the recent massacres committed against the Druze community in Syria. Eyewitnesses report that chants included “Out with the Druze!” and “Today we liberate Suweida, we will break the Druze,” along with calls for rape, murder, and ethnic cleansing. Although 65 police officers were present at the scene, they did not intervene.
The NGO Democ, which monitors extremist activity, also reported antisemitic chants such as “Bring the Israeli flag so we can burn it!” Many of the slogans were later disseminated by the demonstrators themselves on social media. Democ director Linus Kebba Pook sharply criticized the authorities, saying, “In other protests, the police use interpreters to detect incitement to hatred. Why not here?”
The Druze are an indigenous religious minority in the Levant, primarily in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Fiercely opposed to radical Islam, they have historically suffered persecution by groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. In Suweida, southern Syria, recent reports have documented massacres of Druze civilians by jihadist groups, including abductions, executions, and sexual violence, as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and regional media outlets.
According to Eurostat, between 2015 and 2023, Germany received more than 1.2 million Syrians, making it the country with the highest number of Syrian refugees in Europe. France, Sweden, and the Netherlands have also admitted tens of thousands. While many did flee war, jihadist networks, Salafist agitators, and sectarian militants were also among those entering Europe unvetted.
Germany’s Kurdish community has sounded the alarm over growing Islamist and nationalist networks within the Arab and Turkish diasporas, which often promote openly anti-democratic and anti-Kurdish ideologies. Psychologist Ahmad Mansour described the events in Berlin as “a confession of failure” by the German state. Imam Seyran Ateş went further: “These people were sent to Europe to deliberately sow chaos and spread their ideology. Their goal is to Islamize Europe.”
What happened in Berlin is not an isolated incident. It is the reflection of a Europe that, in the name of tolerance, has imported threats that now manifest not at the borders, but in the heart of its capitals.
