Ban attempt fails – Quds Day in Frankfurt 2025 with fewer supporters than last year
by Emil Mink
As in previous years, the Avci network again employed a dual strategy at this year's Quds Day in Frankfurt. This was probably less to appeal to people outside the Shiite Islamist movement than to avoid giving cause for an impending ban of the demonstration.
On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the Quds Day in Frankfurt was discussed in the city's political public more than ever since its first manifestation. The assembly authority of the city of Frankfurt had tried to prevent the demonstration in advance. However, this ban was lifted on Friday afternoon – one day before the demonstration – by the administrative court in Frankfurt.
Overall, significantly fewer people followed the call of the Offenbach Islamic Center Ehlibeyt, which registered the Quds Day demonstration this year under the motto “Stop the massacres of innocent people! Large demonstration for Gaza, Lebanon and Alawites in Syria”. This was also a reference to the persecution of Alawites in Syria by the HTS and its allied militias.
Unlike last year, this year, in addition to the flags of Palestine and the Islamic Republic of Iran, flags of other Islamic countries with a high proportion of Shiites were again carried, such as the flags of Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Probably also because the conflict between Iranian proxies there and Israel has become more open. The Syrian flag of the Assad regime was apparently not displayed. In addition, a block of women and children marched relatively separately again.
In addition to this decidedly Islamic symbolism, as in previous years, efforts were made to use a peace-oriented vocabulary. Only the slogans handed out were to be shouted and only the above-mentioned flags were to be carried. In addition to the well-known slogans of unity between Jews, Christians and Muslims against Zionists or the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, reference was also made to Israel's military offensive against the Lebanese Hezbollah. “From Gaza to Beirut - your silence is blood” and “Palestine, Lebanon - justice will come again” was played over the loudspeakers. On individual posters, Israel was accused of destruction and bloodshed in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and even Iran. The obligatory portraits of the supreme leaders of the Islamic Republic, Khomeini and Khamenei, as well as of the deceased Offenbach imam and founder of the network, Muhammed Avci, led the demonstration.
Some familiar faces from the Avci network were also there again this year. The imams of the network communities in Osterholz-Scharmbeck and Augsburg, Ibrahim Çakar and Halil Karamercan, took part in the demonstration. The son of the Offenbach imam, Ismail Avci, traveled from The Hague. This year, however, without the local clergyman Seyyid Musevi. Also absent was Yunus Çakar from Osterholz-Scharmbeck near Bremen, who has been very present in recent years with his speeches and slogans, as well as the network around Yavuz Özoguz and the Delmenhorst association Islamischer Weg. In Bremen, a small rally was held to mark Quds Day at the same time as in Frankfurt, with Özoguz complaining that Quds Day is banned in Germany. The decentralization of the Quds Day rallies and marches may be due to the threat of a ban by the city of Frankfurt.
The participation of other regional Shiite actors outside the Avci network was noticeable at this year's march. For example, a youth group from the Wiesbaden IGS Mosque Islamic Cultural Association Imam Hussein was present. In addition, the Shiite influencer Hani Karimian took part in the demonstration and commented on it in a video. Karimian is part of the youth organization of the now-banned Center of Islamic Culture in Frankfurt. Similar to the protests against the IZH ban in Berlin, which Karimian helped organize, his video of the Frankfurt march was staged as democratic: “Because the rule of law and democracy mean raising your voice when crimes against humanity occur. When international law is violated. That means close to the constitution. But we are portrayed as anti-constitutional and anti-Semitic,” said Karimian, who has now become an important face on the scene.
Although many older activists from previous years were present, the closing speeches and the Quran recitation in the Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage were taken over by younger people. Abdürrahim Almaz, who had led the Islamic prayers in all previous years, was present at the demonstration but did not take on any such tasks. Whether an attempt is being made here to incorporate a younger generation into the organizational structures of the network and the march will become apparent in the next few years.
The actors of the Avci network try to operate on as much legal ground as possible. The bans on the Quds march in Berlin and certainly also on the Islamic Center in Hamburg and its sub-organizations have led to more caution, including in the speeches and the choice of music. However, the march, along with the Iranian flags and pictures of the Islamic revolutionary leaders, retains its function as a scene and propaganda event for the Islamic Republic, even without a clear and thus punishable vocabulary.
Finally, the participation of authoritarian leftists in the Frankfurt Quds march must be briefly addressed. After October 7 and the Hamas massacre, such a connection was first recognizable in 2024. This year, the organization Free Palestine FFM, which is more likely to be attributed to orthodox Marxist Palestine solidarity, had called for the demonstration in advance. The figurehead of this group, Iranian citizen Aitak Barani, has recently been openly flirting with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies. Barani, who is also a member of the Communist Organization, congratulated the Islamic Republic on the anniversary of the revolution in 2024 and elected the new Iranian president at the Frankfurt consulate that same year. On April 1, the Frankfurt District Court began proceedings against Barani because a few days after October 7, she stated in front of rolling cameras: “There is no Hamas terror! Armed resistance is not terror!”
