German police threaten Israeli with crime for show of Israeli flag

The police in the German city of Frankfurt launched a criminal investigation against the young Israeli musician Ana Agre for her display of an Israeli flag at an anti-Jewish state demonstration  organized by a pro-BDS group that supports convicted Palestinian terrorists.

The prominent Israeli author Chaim Noll on Friday first reported on the popular German website “The Axis of Good” about the threatened criminal case against Ana Agre, the Israeli Musician who works in Germany.

According to Noll, “On July 1st, 2020, she ran into an anti-Israel-demonstration close to her home, arranged by the pro-Palestinian organization Samidoun. She went upstairs into her flat to fetch an Israeli flag and took position on the square where the protesters were marching along, together with their German supporters.”

The flag, wrote Noll, was “about the size of a kitchen towel.” Samidoun is an organization that seeks to secure the release of convicted Palestinian terrorists from prison and supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Noll reported that a Frankfurt “police officer addressed her in English, recorded her identity and advised her to leave the location for reasons of her appearance being provocative to the young Muslims.”

He continued that “Ana obviously indulged in a discussion with the police officer, in English, who finally ended the debate by officially ordering her to leave. When she would ask him why, here in Frankfurt, she was not allowed to display the flag of Israel, the officer responded: “Because I don’t like it.”’

According to Noll, “Several of the marching groups approached Ana and overdrew her with slogans, among them ‘Nazis out.’ In the minds of these young Muslims and their German supporters, an Israeli flag apparently is a Nazi symbol.”

Noll, a Germany-born Jew who made aliyah in 1995, is a prolific writer of books, essays, articles and poems.

He said “A few days later a paper hit her postbox, summoning her to the Frankfurt criminal police headquarters because of an ‘offense according to Criminal Code, paragraph 185,’ scheduled October 7th, 2020. The legal brief, filed under ST 0697601/2020, signed by chief police commissioner J. Schmidt, ended with the statement: ”Should you not be appearing for your interrogation / hearing or not timely be naming reasons of being prevented it will be assumed that you are not willing to make any statements to the police. In this case, the matter will be handed over to the law enforcement agency in charge (…).“

He commented about the criminal proceeding against Agre that she “ is threatened by legal prosecution  because she has been displaying the flag of Israel in Frankfurt am Main, Germany…the police takes the position of the Muslim protesters and their German scene of support.”

The Jerusalem Post sent press queries on Sunday to Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Salomon Korn, the president of the Frankfurt Jewish community.

The city of Frankfurt is located in  the state of Hesse and is the election district for the controversial German Green party MP Omid Nouripour, who is on the advisory board of the pro-Boycott Israel entity, the German Palestinian Society. The pro-BDS group has called for the abolition of Israel in an art exhibit. Nouripour declined to answer a Post query about the case of Agre. German-Iranian dissidents have accused Nouripour of stoking racism and antisemitism.