Overview

• The ban covers all S- and U-bahn trains, buses, trams and station platforms with exemptions only for emergency services and licensed caterers.
• Police will be empowered to conduct suspicion-free searches in the prohibited zones.
• Violations will incur administrative fines of up to 10,000 euros per offense.
• The ban follows 3,412 knife attacks reported in Berlin last year and a fatal U12 line stabbing in April.
• Since February, targeted bans near Görlitzer Park, Kottbusser Tor and Leopoldplatz have yielded about 90 knife seizures and led to the creation of a knife-crime analysis unit at the State Criminal Police Office.