: Racism Is Surging in Germany. Tens of Thousands Are Taking to the Streets to Call for Justice #WorldNEWS Tens of thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets in cities across Germany this

Racism Is Surging in Germany. Tens of Thousands Are Taking to the Streets to Call for Justice #WorldNEWS
Tens of thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets in cities across Germany this weekend, in what may be the largest demonstrator turnout outside of the United States.
In Berlin, organizers expected 1,500 people to show up. Instead, an estimated 15,000 protested in Alexanderplatz, Berlin’s city center, with signs that read “Germany is not innocent” and “Black Lives Matter,” German media outlet DW reported. Demonstrators held a moment of silence that lasted eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck.

But the protests extended far beyond Berlin, with rallies organized in nine other cities across the country. Munich saw a crowd of at least 20,000 people and 14,000 people rallied in Hamburg. Even German football teams—including Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg, Borussia Dortmund and Hertha Berlin—kneeled in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Protests.
But protesters in Germany are not simply expressing outrage at police violence and racial discrimination happening in the United States, they’re calling it out in their own backyard. Heres what to know:
How big a problem is racism and police brutality in Germany?
A United Nations (UN) group that visited Germany in 2017 concluded that there are systemic problems with racism and an “incomplete understanding of history” throughout the country. They found that institutional racism is entrenched within police institutions. The repeated denial that racial profiling exists in Germany by police authorities and the lack of an independent complaint mechanism at [the] federal and state level fosters impunity,” Ricardo Sunga, the head of the UN group, said in a statement.
Institutional racism among police officers has been noted especially in the eastern state of Saxony, where in 2016, a video surfaced of officers from the region violently dragging a refugee out of a bus. Police racism in the region prompted Martin Dulig, Saxony leader of the Social Democratic Party(SPD)at the time to ask if sympathies for Pegida[an anti-Islam movement] and the AfD [the far-right Alternative for Germany party] are more widespread in the police than among normal citizens.
Despite the UN sounding the alarm bell in 2016, the problem did not improve—it got worse. The number of reported cases of racial discrimination significantly increased in Germany, rising by 59% between 2016 and 2019, according to an annual report presented on Tuesday by the German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency (ADS). In January, the office of Germanys only sitting African-born lawmaker, Karamba Diaby, was riddled with bullet holes.