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Qur’an Distribution at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin

Wow! The islamists blessed us with an unexpectedly beautiful Saturday afternoon. On Saturday, April 14th, free Qur’ans were distributed at the Potsdamer Platz as in many other German cities as well. Even though the announcements were rather short-term for this, a stately number of around 40 Islam critics also appeared on the scene in order to better inform passers-by about the contents of the Qur’an. Those represented were: the Berlin PI group, the Citizen Movement Pax Europa (BPE), The FREEDOM Party, the Sarraziners and the Network of Democratic Resistance.

(By Karl Schmitt, BPE)

By the time noon rolled around, there were at least 20 journalists on site. We critics of Islam were dumbfounded over so much unusual media interest. Many of our members suddenly had a microphone unexpectedly placed in front of their face and gave on-the-spot interviews.

The radio and TV splicers will now have their work cut out for them in order to cut out away the undesirable Islam-critical comments. Presumably, they would have rather met with a friendly-interested tolerant citizen who is glad for the enrichment of culture and talks about a diligent study of the Qur’an. The Islam critics present there already long have this study behind them and have made their conclusions from it, and they brought along various banners with information regarding the violent contents of the Qur’an.

We of the BPE distributed our flyer “Read the Qur’an” to every passer-by who had picked up a Qur’an and offered them this as “a little aid for reading” in the Qur’an. In the flyer, of course, were pointers to a whole array of calls for murder and killing with the references from the corresponding Suras. These sheets were accepted by the fresh ‘Qur’an bearers’ without exception. Most of the passers also kept no secret about their more likely skeptical attitude toward the Qur’an. Among these were also people who confessed to be among others Iranians and Iraqis. They assured us of the importance of our informational work and stressed the violent nature of Islam.

Our PI people also sought out conversations with the Qur’an distributing Salafists. Their questions regarding the content of certain Suras were met with rejection, with the words “we are only distributing here” (perhaps that was even the case –, if there is enough money for a printing of millions of books, then our distributors must not necessarily have stood there out of pure idealism).

One of our distributors of the flyers with the Islam-critical content received an unambiguous gesture from one of the Salafists. He looked at him and went over his throat with the inside edge of his hand as if to say what he would rather do with our Islam critic – or perhaps what he had in plan for the future. A PI group member addressed another of the Salafists about Sura 2, verse 191. The one being addressed wanted at first to avoid the issue and then said after determined inquiry that he had not read the Qur’an entirely – apparently the newest ploy for keeping heavy questions away from the throat.

At the same time, Qur’ans were being distributed in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen in front of the Lindencenter. Unfortunately noone from us was on site, since this distribution point wasn’t announced on the Internet.

The star among the press representatives was Lena Duggen with the FREEDOM Party. She had a poster with the words “We don’t need your lies,” a play on words with the title from the distribution action “Lies den Koran” (German for “Read the Qur’an”) (Her statement is here in the RBB video starting at 2:07 minutes).

When I myself was already with a few friends in a neighboring restaurant, our Peter Hahn still had his great appearance. He read aloud the Suras quoted in our BPE flyer. Journalists as well as passers and Salafists reacted to this. One Salafist said that similar sayings were in the Bible just as well. When asked by Peter which passage in the Bible that might be, our Salafist, though, could not give an answer.

We will once again be on site at the next Qur’an distribution initiative. We will then register a demonstration so that we can read with a megaphone the Qur’an Suras that call for violence. It remains hopeful that the Qur’an distributors and their financiers in the background will have cut initiative. In any case they could not make their point and met with overwhelming rejection from the passers. For the press reports now expected there is unfortunately no reason for optimism. It is unfortunately not to be counted on that the skepticism of the passers at the site will be further found in the press reports.