The government-appointed head of LGBT issues in Berlin is joining the chorus of accusations from the German left-wing that last week’s Islamic attack on a Pride parade was fundamentally fueled by “conservative” resentment.Alfonso Pantisano, the “queer commissioner” for the state, acknowledged that the attacks were Islamist in nature but deflected the blame to the Christian Democratic Union and other conservative movements he claims fail to address “queerphobia” in Germany.“The far Right here in Germany is of course waiting for an attack like this one to use it in order to highlight that the foreigners are the problem,” Pantisano said in an interview with Democracy Now! on Tuesday. “But by doing so, they completely forget and avoid looking at how much queerphobia there is in this country at all various levels of structures — at schools, in the workplace, at churches, on the streets, in sports, and in so many other places.”
People lay flowers and attend a memorial in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, to remember victims after a car rammed into people after Saturday’s Pride March in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Patrick Post)
The queer commissioner admitted that those “far-right” forces “might not come out onto the streets with a van and kill us in a big, huge group like this attack could have done,” but asserted that they are a part of the general opposition to LGBT lifestyles.Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen of Lebanese descent with known ties to Islamist groups, drove a van into a Pride event last week, killing one individual and wounding approximately 29 others.Ballout was shot and killed by police after being tracked down and confronted on Sunday. Revelations from local authorities that he was not only known by police but was released from prison on probation after being charged with “preparing a serious act of violence that could endanger the state” have triggered widespread bafflement and sparked wider debate across German society.Pantisano has been the queer commissioner since 2023, when the governing Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party coalition government created the position.Just days before the attack, Pantisano had said in an interview with Abendschau that “right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis” remain the biggest threat to LGBT citizens. He was asked if he stood by those comments in a follow-up interview the day after the attack and affirmed that he did “because by ‘conservative forces’ I also include all religious groups that all have a problem with us, and Islamists belong to that.”Ronald Glaser, a member of the Bundestag affiliated with the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, told the Washington Examiner that Pantisano “should be fired” and said that conservatives in Germany have “long complained that individuals like Abdul Ballout — and their families — were able to immigrate and obtain citizenship without hinderance.”“There is no common ground between German conservatives and second-generation immigrant Islamists,” Glaser said. “Anyone who argues like [Pantisano] is deluding themself. He refuses to acknowledge the problems associated with the mass illegal immigration of recent decades and lashes out at those who point out these issues — instead of facing up to them.”Pantisano is not the only political actor placing the blame for the attack on conservatives. The Berlin branch office of far-left party Die Linke made a similar claim, as did the Neukolln district branch of the Berlin Left Party.“With the rise of the right wing and antifeminist forces, queerphobia and transphobia are also increasing massively,” a statement posted to the Left Party’s Instagram on Sunday said. “The targeted dissemination of queerphobic and transphobic ideology by right-wing and conservative actors paves the way for attacks like yesterday’s.”From left, Family Minister Karin Prien, Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt carry flowers as they visit Tiergarten park after a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (Annegret Hilse/Pool Photo via AP)
