The rainbow bench commemorating the Berlin attack vandalized

The rainbow-colored bench installed at the very site of the attack during the Berlin Pride march at the end of July in the Tiergarten park was vandalized, the police announced on Tuesday, who opened an investigation. “This morning, police were called to the Tiergarten regarding a rainbow bench installed as a place of commemoration, because it was heavily damaged,” the police announced in a press release relayed by the town hall.

Several wooden slats of the bench were torn from the metal frame “with considerable physical violence” and the backrest was broken and “separated from the rest of the structure”, specifies the police who opened an investigation for suspicion of alleged damage to property. The other benches located in the immediate surroundings were intact, as was a newly planted maple tree in memory of the victims, the police said.

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It was a municipal employee assigned to green spaces who made the discovery Tuesday morning. The damaged bench was then removed, noted an AFP journalist. The district of Mitte had the bench installed and the maple planted at the beginning of August to invite reflection and solidarity with the queer community after the attack committed by a young Islamist against the crowd gathered for the pride march, at the end of the demonstration.

Germany has been bereaved in recent years by several attacks committed with vehicles

This car-ramming and stabbing attack left one person dead, a 65-year-old Polish woman, and around thirty injured. The suspect, a 21-year-old young German of Lebanese origin, a radicalized Islamist, was killed the next day by the Berlin police, after 24 hours on the run. Abdul Rahman Ballout likely pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group in a video on the day of the attack, authorities later announced.

Germany has already been bereaved in recent years by several attacks committed with vehicles, some by Islamists, others by unbalanced people or by Islamophobia, fueling a feeling of insecurity which has taken advantage of the German far right, now leading the polls. But it was the first time that the LGBT+ community was targeted by such an attack in this European capital, known for its openness.