Berlin's top cop raises red flags about safety in certain city areas
Berlinʼs police chief points out no-go zones for Jewish and LGBT residents in Arab-populated districts. Recent events show growing safety issues in German capital‚ with over 6000 cases under investigation
Barbara Slowik‚ Berlinʼs police chief made a straight-forward statement about safety concerns in the city: some districts with big Arab communities arent safe for people wearing kippahs or showing LGBT identity
A recent event highlighted these worries when young players (aged 13-15) from a Jewish sports team got chased by stick-carrying teens after a game in an Arab-heavy area; this happened right when similar trouble broke out in Amsterdam with Israeli team fans
Anti-jewish actions doubled last year‚ and since fall-2023 police opened over 6‚000 cases (mostly about mean online posts and wall-writings). The Neukolln area – known for its night-life and arab population – saw some weird stuff like people giving out candy to mark the fall-2023 attacks: this got Germans really worried
The countries law-makers took action: a new anti-hate rule passed in early-november with support from many parties. It says people coming from places where hate is common might lose their right to stay if they do bad stuff. The far-right party Alternative for Germany uses this topic to push for sending people back to their old countries – but most folks care more about money problems right now
There are areas where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful
The trouble list keeps growing: someone attacked a football fan for having a star-of-david scarf; bad guys threw fire-bombs at a synagogue; and two people got hurt just for speaking hebrew at a fast-food place. The gay community also faces problems – theres been some attacks on couples walking together in these areas
