The German state continues with its policies to criminalize Kurdish symbols. The Bavarian state police stands out with its prohibition mindset against people who share YPG/YPJ flags on social media.

Most recently, Bavarian police has raided the homes of Munich Kurdish Society Center Co-chairs Azad Bingol and Hezwan Abdal for holding posters of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan and YPG flags at a demonstration held in solidarity with the Afrin resistance.

POLICE CONFISCATED EVERYTHING THEY GET THEIR HANDS ON

Azad Bingol spoke to ANF German about the raid and condemned the police, demanding the state stop criminalization policies against Kurds. Bingol said the police confiscated all publications and posters they found in his home and added:

“The police confiscated photographs of YPG/YPJ members who fell martyr in the fight against ISIS and Kurdish revolutionary women murdered in Paris, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez. They confiscated old issues of Yeni Özgür Politika, a newspaper you can buy off any news stand in Germany right now, t-shirts with the words ‘Freedom for Öcalan’ and a hand made portrait of Yılmaz Güney, showing their intolerance against any Kurdish symbols.”

Kurdish activist Azad Bingöl said he has been subjected to German police investigations several times before: “Oppression can’t intimidate the Kurds, butthis policy of the German state against Kurds means support for the war the Turkish state is waging.”

BAVARIANS DON’T CARE FOR POLICE OPPRESSION

Bavaria has the most conservative and right-wing administration in Germany, but the residents of the state continue to support the Kurdish freedom movement and the YPG/YPJ despite oppression and investigations by the state police. This increasing support was also noted in the reports the police forces prepared last July in state capital Munich.

Munich police added German citizens who share YPG/YPJ flags on social media in the “politically motivated crimes-foreigners” section of the report for the first time this year. The chapter had 65 entries in 2016, which rose to 114 in 2017, and the Munich police explained the increase as follows:

“There is a simple explanation for this rise. Last year, a 29-year-old German citizen shared banned symbols of YPG, YPJ and PYD on their facebook account. Then other users started to do the same and it spread throughout the country.”

With this statement, the Munich police has admitted that support for YPG and YPJ is growing in Bavaria despite the bans, the investigations and house raids. German police has banned YPG flags in various demonstrations, and in particular carries out house raids against people who post the YPG flag or photos of YPG fighters in Bavaria.

The “29-year-old German citizen” mentioned in the police report was Kerem Schamberger, an academic in Munich. The police had raided Schamberger’s home last November for showing solidarity with the YPG.

Bavarian police had also launched a scandalous investigation against Munich-based musician Johannes König for sharing a link from the state radio-TV Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on social media, citing that YPG/YPJ flags were visible in the link.