In September 2014, a group of young Germans donned orange safety vests emblazoned with “Sharia police” and took their puritanical view of Islam to the streets of Wuppertal. For several nights, they accosted patrons of the western German city’s nightclubs and casinos and handed out leaflets extolling the virtues of Sharia law.
They were soon arrested and accused of “violating laws against wearing uniforms with political messages,” but a district court dismissed the charges.
This week, a higher court overturned that decision after an appeal from prosecutors. Eight of the nine accused men can now face trial on the grounds that they violated Germany’s ban on political uniforms, a law first passed in 1932 in a futile attempt to prohibit Nazis from wearing their symbolic brown shirts.
