Christian Youth Festival violently disturbed by Anti-Christian Forces

Country: Germany

Date of incident: May 4, 2008


The Christian Youth Festival “Christival” experienced tremendous opposition on site. 15.000 peaceful youth disturb by socalled “anti-sexistic alliance” under the name of “No Christival” shouting slogans such as “Masturbation instead of Evangelization” or “Never again Jesus”.

The Christival took place in Bremen, Germany, from April 30th to May 4th and brought together more than 15.000 youth. As anticipated due to the denunciations before the event , the Christival experienced tremendous opposition on site. Already at the opening of the festival on the 30th of April, where 15.000 young people were present, a self-appointed “antisexistic alliance” under the name of “No Christival” demonstrated only a few hundreds of meters away. About 450 people, mainly from the homosexual and left scene, gathered to form a protest procession. About 100 demonstrators broke through barriers. Others casted firework. A police officer got hurt. Two people where arrested, because of violating the public peace. The demonstrators chanted slogans in German such as “No God, no state, no patriarchy”, “Masturbation instead of Evangelization” or “Never again Jesus”. A couple of times Evangelicals where mentioned in the same breath as Nazis over the speakers and on flyers they accused the hosts of the Christival of having “extreme conservative and right wing world views, that are characterized by literal bible interpretation, homophobia and sexism”. During the Festival, further incidents took place: • According to the hosts, a couple of people where mobbed and thrown at with beer bottles. • In the evening of the 1st of May, a hacker paralyzed the Website of the Festival (www.christival.de), where people who tried to look at the programme would then read the following: “Hey you. Christival.de is temporary closed. We know that the belief in God is curable. In the past, we were very religious. Now it is gone.” • Conflicts arose during a meeting at St. Martini church, where famous Christian speaker Ulrich Parzany was holding a lecture. According to participants, some homosexual couples started kissing with ostentation. A couple of them got up and cried: “Get up, when you’re homos” and threw little papers with other slogans around. • On the 3rd of May, another demonstration took place on the premises of the Christival protesting against the seminar of the pregnancy helpdesk “Die Birke” with a big transparent saying “My uterus is mine only”. When the ushers closed the door to the event area, the demonstrators violently pushed it open again. The police took 34 people into custody. “No Christival” arranged further manifestations while the Christival was going on. Festival’s website: www.christival.de
Sources: www.idea.de www.kath.net