Judgment in Parallel

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.