Not a word on bin Laden, judge warns German Islamists before rally

May 6, 2011, 15:38 GMT

Berlin - A radical German Muslim was set to hold a controversial open air rally in Frankfurt Saturday after a court overturned a ban, but a judge warned him and his supporters not to even utter the words 'Osama bin Laden.'

City officials had earlier tried to stop the event in Frankfurt after Pierre Vogel, a former boxer who has converted to Islam, said he would recite a prayer for bin Laden.

Vogel, a preacher, says on his website he does not sympathize with bin Laden. However, authorities, who regard him as a menace, suspect his sermon, entitled 'Islam's Attitude to Terrorism,' will be subtly supportive of extremism.

Vogel and his backers went to court Friday after the city refused permission for the public gathering.

An administrative tribunal ordered the permit to be issued after Vogel and his supporters accepted 14 specific conditions. Nothing at the event may allude to Osama bin Laden's life or death, even indirectly.

'The ideology and actions of al-Qaeda must not be supported or trivialized,' the tribunal order said.

Vogel said his initial plan to include a 'funeral prayer' for bin Laden had been inept. A Vogel spokesman said speakers intended to argue that Islam had nothing to do with terrorism.

The Frankfurt city council initially refused permission for the event, ruling that it made a mockery of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda terrorists.

A city spokesman, Adolf Kannengiesser, said the tribunal ruling would not be appealed against.

Vogel two weeks ago organized a rally at the same central city site. It was addressed by Bilal Philips, a Canadian-raised Islamist who says the Koran ordains the death penalty for the practice of homosexuality. Gays, neo-Nazis and leftists all picketed the event.

A city group representing migrants, the municipal foreigners' council, said, 'A memorial service for the organizer of terrorist attacks would have been intolerable in our city.'

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