The youth wing of Germany’s Christian Democrats has criticised media for allegedly ignoring evidence of Islamist motives behind a recent knife attack.
The Junge Union of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania wrote online that some of its members had been present during the assault at a Brandenburg motorway service station on September 7.
“Five members of the Junge Union Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were on their way back from the Eastern Conference of the Junge Union Deutschlands in Cottbus when they stopped at a gas station outside Berlin,” a social media post by the Junge Union branch explained.
“Just as they were leaving the gas station, a man with a clear migrant background ran into the gas station and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’. The members, who were immediately in front of the gas station, were horrified to see that the man pulled out a knife and attacked the people inside.
“The members reacted quickly and got themselves to safety in order to call the police from there.”
The organisation added that, despite the man’s alleged shouting of a common phrase used in Islam, many in the country had initially refused to acknowledge that part of the incident.
“We regret that the reports sometimes did not mention the perpetrator’s connection to Islam through his exclamation of the creed ‘Allahu Akbar’,” the Junge Union faction wrote.
“We experienced it: Islamist acts of violence are real. It can happen to all of us.”
In reaction to rising knife violence in Germany, Bonn’s police chief Frank Hoever has said: “People of other cultures have a different relationship to knives.” https://t.co/ICSz7QFJvI
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 14, 2024
Many media outlets in the country only began to acknowledge the apparent Islamist element of the attack on September 11.
Part of this seemed to be due to an initial omission of such by public prosecutors in Brandenburg, with T-Online reporting that officials only acknowledged they were investigating a possible Islamist motive for the stabbing three days after it happened.
“Against the background of the exclamation ‘Allahu Akbar’ made by the alleged perpetrator, which was allegedly heard by two of the witnesses questioned, the question of an Islamist background to the crime as well as other circumstances regarding the possible motivation for the crime are the subject of further investigations,” authorities confirmed.
Die Welt and Tagesspiegel reportedly confirmed that the attacker had a migrant background.
One person was said to have been injured in the attack but is since described as having been discharged from hospital.
In reaction to a brutal knife attack in Mannheim during which a police officer was fatally stabbed in the neck, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he wanted stricter deportation policies targeting criminal migrants. https://t.co/Lw8BtMOZlv
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 6, 2024
