The following article was published earlier this month in the Berlin Morgenpost. The translation by Nash Montana was published earlier at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.

Gang of youths punishes kiosk owner for selling alcohol

Three men in a Neukölln kiosk were attacked by thirty children and youths. The dispute was over the selling of alcohol.

The Gropiusstadt area in Neukölln is a social hot spot in Berlin South. The Kurdish owner of a snack bar and kiosk was forced to experience that last Sunday evening. Not for the first time, he says.

“Every school vacation, the kids come gather here every evening and commit mischief on the plaza in front of the train station,” the 53-year-old said on Monday. The night before, the so called mischief escalated.

“First about ten to fifteen children, aged nine to twelve or maybe thirteen, popped up. They very specifically were provoking us, and they knocked at the backdoor as well as the front door of my establishment and they tried to block the exit,” the owner says. The children threw stones and did damage to the side of the building.

The 53-year-old called the police at about 7:30pm, but when police arrived, the children were gone already. But not for long.

One hour later, around 8:30pm, they returned, with reinforcements. “Suddenly in front of us there weren’t just children, but a group of youths aged fourteen to twenty-one,” the owner’s son says. The group hurled insults, and they attacked, under the pretense that because alcohol was sold here, therefore “they had to be punished.” According to the kiosk owner they were all Muslim youths.

Blow to the back of the head

The attacks escalated to hands-on fights, in which the son of the owner received quite a few contusions. His friend, trying to help, was hurt above the eye. The owner received a blow to the back of the head and went down. By the time he got back up, the mob had disappeared.

Now the police are investigating for breach of the peace, assault/bodily harm, and property damage.Whether the motive for the attack really was about selling alcohol could not be confirmed by the police.

Additionally, the police also could not confirm whether these attacks increase during school vacations. But it couldn’t be excluded. As a speaker for the Morgenpost said, the attack on Sunday night wasn’t the first of its kind.