The following TV news report from Germany serves as a video follow-up to the five-part series about Neukölln mayor Heinz Buschkowsky and his new book (see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5). It discusses the evolution of a parallel sharia legal system in the Muslim ghettos of major German cities.
Many thanks to Hermes for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | In the meantime, a kind of parallel world has developed in the Muslim districts | |
| 00:06 | of many big German cities, often also with parallel Islamic justice. | |
| 00:12 | People trust a self-appointed “Peace Judge” more than the German police | |
| 00:18 | and the German judiciary. In this way crimes ranging from violent acts to attempted murders | |
| 00:24 | remain unpunished by the German law. Our reporter [name] has met the controversial peace | |
| 00:30 | judge of Neukölln. | |
| 00:34 | We want to interview this man, but we meet mistrust. We are filmed | |
| 00:40 | while filming, an unusual situation. He is neither a dangerous criminal nor a mullah; | |
| 00:46 | Hassan Alush sees himself as the law, renders judgment and keeps the peace | |
| 00:52 | in a district of Berlin which has long ago turned into a parallel society. German justice | |
| 00:58 | no longer has much to say in his territory. Because Hassan Alush is | |
| 01:03 | the Arab peace judge of Neukölln-Berlin. | |
| 01:10 | “One cannot live without law, but one needs an iron fist to maintain it.” | |
| 01:15 | We are there as he mediates in a family dispute. Many migrants here | |
| 01:21 | no longer trust German justice. So they have organized it for themselves. | |
| 01:27 | We have founded our own city. Do you know what this means? We founded a city. | |
| 01:32 | For example, our peace judges. If we have problems, we go to them. | |
| 01:36 | Basically this is nothing more than the undermining of our constitutional state. | |
| 01:41 | An Islamic parallel justice has developed in the middle of Berlin, and | |
| 01:45 | this is his district. Heinz Buschkowsky has been warning of this for a long time. | |
| 01:49 | What do you have to say about so many peace judges in Berlin? | |
| 01:53 | I find it truly frightening. This is nothing more than the direct way to anarchy. | |
| 01:58 | How many parallel societies is Germany coping with? | |
| 02:04 | Berlin, Neukölln. Almost every second inhabitant has a so-called migration background. | |
| 02:09 | The level of criminality is twice as high as in other similar districts. | |
| 02:14 | A reason: the largely Muslim population have long since stopped trusting the German police. | |
| 02:20 | We meet a youngster who tells us this in a rather blunt way. | |
| 02:23 | (It’s a) feeling of hate towards all of them. All cops. | |
| 02:27 | — You feel that? — Yeah, yeah. — Why? | |
| 02:30 | So it is. Because they are always keeping an eye on me, and on immigrants. | |
| 02:34 | Always keeping an eye. Even if you do nothing, in the street, they catch you, | |
| 02:38 | they push you into a corner, pick out the handcuffs, in front of everybody. | |
| 02:41 | — Seen this already? — Yes, many times. And for me this is not OK. | |
| 02:44 | Do you respect the German police? | |
| 02:46 | — No, absolutely not. Let them show respect towards me. — Why? | |
| 02:50 | What? If they do not have respect towards me, then neither will I have any towards them. | |
| 02:55 | — Do you respect the peace judges? — Yeah, yeah, absolutely. — Why? | |
| 03:00 | Yeah, because… they make peace. | |
| 03:03 | So youngsters like this respect the peace judges. | |
| 03:07 | We try come into contact with one of them, but this is not so easy, | |
| 03:10 | because peace judges are very busy in Berlin. | |
| 03:15 | At 3 p.m. in the [name] Grill, you said? Everything OK. | |
| 03:19 | Mistrust is part of his job, and the so-called peace judge | |
| 03:22 | has already had bad experiences with reporters. | |
| 03:25 | He comes with his daughter who is always with him, and documents | |
| 03:29 | everything for fear of false reporting by part of the media. | |
| 03:33 | How long have you been a peacemaker? | |
| 03:36 | I started with this job in 1990, and from then on I’ve always been a peacemaker, | |
| 03:46 | and I do everything I can in order to help people, because we live in Germany, | |
| 03:51 | we want to live here in peace and security. | |
| 03:55 | OK. The Germans tell you ,for example: we have German justice, | |
| 03:58 | why do we need peacemakers here? | |
| 04:00 | OK. For example, I am, if I receive a phone call, no matter at what hour, | |
| 04:06 | my mobile is 24 hours on, when my mobile rings, and I hear that there are | |
| 04:12 | problems somewhere, I run there immediately, and I talk with both parties | |
| 04:17 | in order to calm them, OK? And I bring peace and calmness. | |
| 04:24 | Hassan Alush considers himself to be a link between German justice | |
| 04:29 | and his fellow Muslim countrymen, and offers his services for free. | |
| 04:33 | But he settles the majority of conflicts in circumvention of local laws. | |
| 04:37 | As for judging, the 58-year-old is tough with his clients. For him, | |
| 04:41 | German laws are too feeble. | |
| 04:44 | Far too weak. For example, in such criminal cases as drug trafficking, | |
| 04:49 | murder or this or that, they get a punishment of 2, 3, 5 years. | |
| 04:53 | Where do they serve their sentence? In an “open prison” in Spandau-Hakenfelde. | |
| 04:59 | They must spend the night there, and by day they walk free. This is no prison. | |
| 05:03 | And the criminals have nothing to worry about, and why? | |
| 05:07 | His wife and his children get the money, the livelihood, everything | |
| 05:12 | from the welfare office and the job center, and he says: | |
| 05:15 | “I do not care, I serve sentence here, and I can continue with my drug business, | |
| 05:20 | my wife and my children are safe, they get everything.” No, stop this! | |
| 05:24 | We do not want him in Germany! He must be expelled! Away with him! | |
| 05:29 | But in spite of, or just because of his attitude, almost every Arab in Berlin | |
| 05:35 | respects him and has his phone number. This is why a quiet conversation (with him) | |
| 05:40 | is hardly possible to maintain. He is continually called. A new case. | |
| 05:45 | The Lebanese-born is not an elected peace judge, but he was born into this position. | |
| 05:51 | The ancestors of Alush were also mediators in disputes. | |
| 05:55 | They are highly respected in the Muslim community. | |
| 05:58 | Among his tasks: mediation and | |
| 06:01 | arbitration between clans before their disputes escalate, but… | |
| 06:05 | There are of course situations where he does not help them, | |
| 06:08 | when he turns off his mobile right away, as for example in cases of terrorism, | |
| 06:12 | trading in weapons, etc… | |
| 06:15 | The issues involving protection money are not too difficult for him. | |
| 06:18 | Here in this slaughterhouse Suleiman al Mustafa works. | |
| 06:21 | He has been for years extorted by his own countrymen, the protection money mafia. | |
| 06:25 | As his livelihood was in danger, and he no longer knew what to do, | |
| 06:29 | he turned to the peace judge. | |
| 06:35 | What kind of problem did you have? | |
| 06:38 | Extortion. Those people falsified some things using my name, papers and documents; | |
| 06:44 | it was about money, here and there, all the time, more than 120,000 euros. | |
| 06:51 | — So you were extorted for protection money. — Yes | |
| 06:54 | — Is this normal here in Neukölln? — In Germany, not only in Neukölln. Everywhere. | |
| 07:00 | Extortion of protection money, a crime punishable in Germany by up to 5 years | |
| 07:05 | in prison, if punished at all. Many victims have no trust. | |
| 07:09 | Why don’t you want to go to the police? | |
| 07:12 | They (the mafia) threatened me and my family, that they would destroy us, | |
| 07:17 | they would do this or that to us, and this is why one tries to solve this in a peaceful way, | |
| 07:24 | with money and so on, but in a certain moment things failed. | |
| 07:28 | — How long have they been extorting you? How long? — More than a year and a half. | |
| 07:32 | He did not want to go straight to the police, but there was my plan, first I took him | |
| 07:36 | to the lawyer and afterwards I talked with him once more in order to go to the police | |
| 07:41 | with the lawyer. And things worked. And since then things have been calm for him. | |
| 07:45 | How would you see it if someone forbids what he is doing? | |
| 07:50 | One cannot forbid this, because he is not doing something wrong. | |
| 07:55 | Just the opposite, he helps people. He is on the side of law, and not against it. | |
| 08:02 | This father of 2 dared to go to the police only with the help of the peace judge, | |
| 08:08 | and all parties were satisfied. He is not. Heinz Buschkowsky is the major of this district, | |
| 08:14 | and doesn’t agree with this sort of problem-solving method. He has been | |
| 08:17 | warning for a long time about parallel justice. | |
| 08:20 | When I first talked about the peace judges five or six years ago, | |
| 08:26 | people began teasing me: “Hey you, you Dumb August [low-class clown], | |
| 08:30 | what do they look like? Where could we meet with them? And so on… | |
| 08:38 | The mayor’s much-discussed book “Neukölln ist Überall” is found among the top | |
| 08:42 | positions in the lists of bestsellers. In it he describes the problematic everyday life | |
| 08:46 | in his district with a 41% immigrant population. | |
| 08:49 | He sees the parallel justice as something already long ago established in Neukölln. | |
| 08:53 | There is the famous example that here in Neukölln there was a shooting openly on a street, | |
| 09:00 | the police scraped out 60 bullets from the building walls, and there were injured people, | |
| 09:07 | and all involved in this issue stood in the court figuratively holding each other’s hands, | |
| 09:13 | they stared at the judge and said: “Mr. Judge, there is nothing to discuss here, | |
| 09:18 | we have already reached an agreement”. This is what we realize, | |
| 09:24 | that those involved deal among themselves, whether a shooting, a robbery | |
| 09:31 | or other different businesses It is often about influence, about a certain proportion | |
| 09:41 | of immigrants in the organized crime, with free play, that power is handed over to them. | |
| 09:51 | That is not possible, that means heading directly towards anarchy. | |
| 09:57 | Berlin Neukölln, Hasenheide — The most conflict-ridden sector of Buschkowsky’s district. | |
| 10:00 | Whoever lives here has long ago joined the parallel society. | |
| 10:04 | Robbery, extortion, drug trafficking and violence are part of daily life. | |
| 10:08 | Section 55 of the police in Neukölln has plenty of work, | |
| 10:13 | but they have no longer much to say. A situation of anarchy? | |
| 10:18 | We are put into a hole. They look for places where there are many immigrants, | |
| 10:23 | they send us right there. Why do they not send us where the Germans are, | |
| 10:27 | so that we could integrate? This IS integration, but there is nothing about that. It’s a division: | |
| 10:34 | foreigners — Germans. This is sh**. | |
| 10:37 | The inhabitants no longer trust politicians and police; they feel that they have been | |
| 10:42 | left behind. In this way, the gap is already there for the parallel society (to form). | |
| 10:46 | We have founded our own city. Do you know what this means? We founded a city. | |
| 10:50 | For example, our peace judges. If we have stress (problems), we go to them, and we say: | |
| 10:55 | “we have this problem”. Why? We could also go to the police! | |
| 10:59 | They are trained to protect us! But no, but no, a wound must be inflicted | |
| 11:06 | so that they can help you. I do not need this kind of sh***y help. | |
| 11:10 | What is important for me is help coming before something happens to me. | |
| 11:14 | The German police are seen here not as a friend and a helper, but as the new enemy. | |
| 11:19 | I tell you something. If someone is killed, then one says: “Oh, what a pity”. | |
| 11:24 | But if one hears that a police agent has been shot, then: “Oh, that’s fine” | |
| 11:31 | War declared by those who cause fear. How do police in Berlin deal with these | |
| 11:35 | developments? Karsten Wendt sees that police work is being hindered. | |
| 11:40 | From my point of view there are diverse cases where mediators, | |
| 11:46 | among them also the self-appointed peace judges, have mediated between the parties, | |
| 11:51 | that is, between the perpetrators of crimes and the victims, without involving the police, | |
| 11:58 | and sometimes, at the end of the investigation, we do not know what happened, | |
| 12:04 | because the facts told by the witnesses, by the victims, | |
| 12:08 | are presented in fairly different ways. | |
| 12:11 | Joachim Wagner has devoted an entire book to parallel justice in Germany, | |
| 12:15 | and a chapter to the Arab peace judges. | |
| 12:20 | In all immigrant districts dominated by Muslims, whether in Berlin, | |
| 12:24 | in North Rhine-Westphalia, or in Bremen, parallel Islamic justice exists. | |
| 12:30 | Does this put the German constitutional state in danger? | |
| 12:33 | One may say that it is wonderful that such traditions are preserved and upheld, | |
| 12:37 | but this proves fatal as long as they stand in opposition to our constitutional state, | |
| 12:43 | because they have such things as the blood revenge, which belongs to it, | |
| 12:49 | and self-justice, which also belongs to parallel Islamic justice. | |
| 12:54 | Hassan Alush lives a dangerous life. Because when conflicts are handled without | |
| 12:58 | the involvement of German justice, then it cannot intervene if something happens. | |
| 13:03 | The 58-year-old Lebanese has already met with blood revenge | |
| 13:08 | and self-justice in his environment. He seldom goes to the street without bullet-proof vest, | |
| 13:13 | and he keeps his address secret. He had to take these measures | |
| 13:17 | so as not to end like his brother. | |
| 13:20 | In 2004, somebody punctured the tires of my brother’s car, | |
| 13:26 | he wanted to take his children to school early in the morning, | |
| 13:30 | and as he wanted to see what happened to the tires, my brother’s murderer came | |
| 13:37 | from behind, and shot him three times, twice in the head, and once in the spine. | |
| 13:42 | — In Berlin? — In Berlin | |
| 13:44 | The 38-year-old father, executed openly in the street, in Germany. | |
| 13:50 | He was also a mediator, and he became the target in a family feud | |
| 13:55 | because he was allegedly partial towards one of the parties. | |
| 13:58 | Why is Alush a peace judge, when he is risking his life with this job? | |
| 14:04 | I must always fear those men, and if I have to die because I’m a peace judge, then | |
| 14:13 | I will die as a martyr for Germany, and I leave the good reputation for my children. | |
| 14:21 | We do not have a lot of money, but we are respected, because we help other people, | |
| 14:27 | we are honest and correct. | |
| 14:30 | Officially, Alush is secondhand car dealer. He says that he receives no money for | |
| 14:35 | his work as peace judge. Now when everything is solved behind the scenes with no | |
| 14:40 | involvement by German justice, participants like his brother also become a target, | |
| 14:45 | and they are defenselessly exposed to the parallel justice, with its own rules. | |
| 14:50 | The position of Alush has in this way become a thorn not only in the | |
| 14:54 | side of Arab gangsters, but also in that of German critics. | |
| 14:58 | I accuse the peace judges of trying to undermine the German law’s entitlement | |
| 15:03 | to punish. Compared to the peace judges, the German constitutional state must | |
| 15:08 | be more defensive, it must “show its teeth”, to intervene in those cases | |
| 15:13 | which need to be handled in order to stop this informal Islamic parallel justice. | |
| 15:22 | And as this fails to happen, Hassan Alush is in more demand than ever. | |
| 15:27 | The mosque in Neukölln at Columbiadamm is the biggest of some two dozen in Berlin. | |
| 15:32 | Today, a funeral service is taking place here. The deceased is the father of this man. | |
| 15:37 | A natural death. | |
| 15:43 | Today we have a funeral, and we have no strength to deal with this, | |
| 15:47 | Hassan is always there for us. | |
| 15:50 | This is another of the duties of a peace judge. Gestures like this are those which | |
| 15:55 | make him earn respect among his fellow countrymen. He is there for them, | |
| 15:59 | in every situation in life. Helping community members to deal with grief, | |
| 16:04 | or with family conflicts. In Arab culture, the family is paramount. | |
| 16:13 | The involvement of strangers is taboo and is the equivalent of a loss of honor. | |
| 16:18 | To be allowed to be here is almost like being present at a confession (in church), | |
| 16:22 | because the family problems are the most intimate issues in the Islamic society. | |
| 16:28 | In this case it was about four children who were taken away from their biological parents. | |
| 16:34 | A classic dispute over custody rights, which he has handled as a social worker. | |
| 16:40 | He helped us to come out of the social center… he has helped us… | |
| 16:47 | So you were brought to the center, and dad helped you to come out so that | |
| 16:52 | — you all can be together with grandma and grandpa. — Yes | |
| 16:56 | Even the most difficult cases are solved easily and quickly in the | |
| 17:01 | company of tea and pastries. This is what goes on among the families. | |
| 17:06 | The authorities sit in their offices, and talk for one, two, five minutes: | |
| 17:13 | “yes, we take care”. I don’t know whether they take care properly or not, | |
| 17:18 | but I run, and run, and run, | |
| 17:22 | especially in a case like this, because it affects four children. | |
| 17:26 | Not only are German authorities not welcomed here, | |
| 17:29 | police action would also make things worse. | |
| 17:36 | When somebody from the other side calls the police, and a complaint is filed, | |
| 17:40 | then the situation escalates, and more anger arises, but if the peace judge comes, | |
| 17:45 | then issues are solved in a 99.9% of the cases. | |
| 17:50 | Hassan Alush deals daily with such issues, from relatively harmless family problems | |
| 17:56 | to honor killing, and he makes his needs clear. | |
| 17:59 | I do everything I can in order to help people so that we can all live in peace. | |
| 18:06 | And what do I ask for from the state? An office, and a car with a blue light, | |
| 18:11 | a helper from the state, and they have to accept me entirely. I’ve been doing this | |
| 18:17 | already for 20 years. Goodbye and have a peaceful life. | |
| 18:22 | Here ends our filming work with the peace judge from Neukölln. | |
| 18:26 | He must continue. He says that he has never had so much to do. | |
| 18:31 | A serious dialogue between the German authorities and Hassan Alush | |
| 18:36 | has unfortunately still not taken place. |
Interesting that Hassan Alush neglected to mention that honour killings of women are also a part of self-administered Islamic justice.
I have said it before, I shall say it again.
If it ‘their’ city, then we should not provide them with the fruits of our labours: Water, Electricity, Social Services and cash.
Let them have their cities, with borders and boundries and see how long they cope alone.