Police Accused of Alleged Brutality at Cologne Anti-Islam Rally
DEUTSCHE WELLE: Allegations of police brutality and human rights abuses by law enforcement officers in the German city of Cologne have surfaced in a news report.

The alleged abuses, including putting children and adolescents in cages, are supposed to have taken place during a demonstration against a far-right "Stop Islam" conference in Cologne last weekend.

The police were confronted before, during and after the event -- eventually abandoned on public safety grounds -- by extreme leftists who attempted to reach the square during the planned rally by anti-immigrant group Pro Cologne.

Der Spiegel magazine alleged on its Web site that hundreds of protestors, including 72 teenagers and three children, were taken to a detention center in the nearby town of Bruehl, and some had to stay in open air cages despite the cold temperatures.

The protestors said about 30 of them were kept in a 36 square-meter (388-square-foott [sic]) cage, and some of the teenagers were not allowed to call their parents or use the toilets, Der Spiegel Online said, adding that a lot of them were not released until the early hours of Sunday morning. Police Accused of Alleged Brutality at Cologne Anti-Islam Rally >>> | September 24, 2008

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German Government Condemns Islamophobic Confab in Cologne
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC NEWS AGENCY (IRNA): The German government here Friday condemned an international Islamophobic conference due to open later in the day in the western city of Cologne.


Addressing a regular weekly press briefing, a spokeswoman for the German Interior Ministry "condemned all extremist actions" related to the so-called 'Anti-Islamization Congress', hosted by the far-right group 'Pro Koeln'.

Gabriele Hermani stressed the far-right confab would negatively impact on efforts to promote peaceful co-existence between the German state and its Muslims citizens.

Tens of thousands of people were expected to take to the streets of Cologne to protest against the three-day Islamophobic meeting.

A wide spectrum of nationwide civic groups, among them labor, student, church and anti-racism groups, were due to join the protests and mass blockades.

Initial media reports pointed to a tense situation near the conference site, as counter-demonstrators were hoping to disrupt the anti-Islam meeting.

Efforts to ban the event failed because of legal reasons, according to Cologne Police President Klaus Steffenhagen.

Under surveillance by Germany's domestic Verfassungsschutz intelligence agency,`Pro Koeln` has invited around 1,000 right-wing extremists to the disputed meeting in Cologne, among them leading far-right politicians from the US, France, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Spain and Italy.

A major focus of 'Pro Koeln' has been its controversial opposition to the planned construction of a central mosque for Cologne's nearly 150,000-strong Muslim community.

‘Pro Cologne' has five seats in Cologne's 90-member city council.
There are 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany of which 2.5 million are Turks. [Source: IRNA] | September 19, 2008

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