Left Party leader accuses Union of 'undignified game' after CSD attack

Luigi Pantisano demands visible support for the queer scene. The Union is instrumentalizing the suffering for its hardliner demands.

By Tobias Schulze Publication date: 2026-07-30, 8:49 AM

Left Party chairman Luigi Pantisano has criticized demands from the CDU and CSU to expand police powers as a lesson from the attack on Christopher Street Day (CSD).

"The Union parties are playing the same unworthy game as after every attack. They pull out their police state wish lists and instrumentalize the suffering caused for their own agenda," Pantisano told taz.

The "whole proposals for tightening measures" miss the point, Pantisano continued. "This perpetrator was an Islamist, the next one could also be a Nazi again. It's about hatred of queer people." The police can apprehend perpetrators and, with luck, stop them before an act, but they cannot combat hatred and prevent radicalization.

"That is the task of politics, which must visibly stand by queer people. This includes symbols like flagging the Reichstag, but above all supporting structures and educational work that help counteract hatred."

Ankle Monitors and Preventive Detention

Following the Berlin attack, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) called for tougher measures against potential perpetrators. For individuals classified by police as threats, electronic ankle monitors should, in his view, become "an obligatory means" of surveillance. They should be placed in preventive detention more quickly, and courts should no longer be allowed to apply juvenile criminal law to adult threats.

Family Minister Karin Prien (CDU) wants to strengthen deradicalization programs through the "Democracy Living" project. However, she is simultaneously facing criticism from queer associations, among other things, because she is cutting funding for the queer youth network Lambda.

Left Party Also Under Criticism

In recent days, however, there has also been criticism of the Left Party's handling of the attack on Christopher Street Day – and that, in turn, from the CDU, among others. The trigger was an Instagram post by the Left Party district association Neukölln in which "queer- and transphobic ideology by right-wing and conservative forces" was described as paving the way for the act. The Islamist motives of the perpetrator were not mentioned in the post.

Berlin CDU top candidate Stefan Evers then told Die Welt: "The denial of reality in dealing with political Islam and Islamism is part of the problem of this Left Party." You cannot solve a problem if you don't call it by its name.

The Left Party Neukölln has since corrected its post, and its top candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives election apologized. Party chairman Pantisano, however, is going on the counterattack.

"Conservative politicians cut funds for queer projects, disparage the community, and then present themselves as protectors. That is absurd. They are only distracting from their own failure," he told taz on Friday.

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