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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Fatma Aydemir

Germany’s leaders say the Berlin Pride attack targeted ‘all of us’. What utter hypocrisy

People at the Brandenburg Gate, which is illuminated with the message ‘Berlin, city of freedom’, 26 July 2026.
People at the Brandenburg Gate, which is illuminated with the message ‘Berlin, city of freedom’, 26 July 2026. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

It feels like a well-rehearsed script. First come the flowers, then the pious statements. One after another, mainstream German politicians have lined up to claim that the attack on Berlin Pride last weekend was an attack on “all of us”, “our values” and “our society”.

Except it was not. This atrocity in which a van was rammed into the crowd was, first and foremost, an attack on queer people. A vulnerable community that has been fighting for its rights for many decades; that, in recent years and all over the world, has increasingly been targeted by conservative forces.

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