The YPG, viewed with sympathy throughout the world, has become a nightmare for Germany’s state forces.

German police went into action against a citizen from Western Kurdistan who hanged a YPG flag at his flat’s window in Prenzlau city of Brandenburg province.

Citing the ban on YPG flag introduced by the Interior Ministry of Germany, police officers removed the flag from the window and confiscated it, also launching an investigation against the Kurdish citizen for “making propaganda with a banned symbol”.

In August, German police raided two leftist activists Narges Nassimi and Kerem Schamberger’s shared home in Munich because the latter posted the YPG flag on social media. The raid was conducted by special operation units and the police confiscated laptops, harddisks and mobile phones as “criminal evidence”.

Schamberger said he posted the YPG flag on Facebook, like thousands of other people in Germany, and that it’s not a crime but a honorable act. Schamberger then posted photos of YPJ fighters and the YPJ flag under a photo of the investigation report and condemned the German police.

The German Interior Ministry sent a notice to the states on March 2, 2017 and demanded a ban on various Kurdish parties and institutions’ flags, including the PYD, YPG, YPJ, PJAK, YXK and NAV-DEM. The Ministry had announced the reason for the ban as an “update” to the PKK ban that has been in place since 1993.