Some two million people took to the streets of Germany’s Rhine region for the climax of the carnival season Monday but Muslim representatives were angered by floats featuring bearded men in turbans and explosives belts.

The word “Cliche” was printed on one of the men, while the other bore the word “Reality.”

The depiction of Islam was “barefaced lies” and the float was “using negative images to seek attention,” the Central Council of Muslims’ secretary general Aiman Mazyek told Tuesday’s edition of the Westdeutsche Zeitung daily.

Mazyek said he asked himself what the float was meant to signal. “This is how I read the message: ‘We love our prejudices and we strengthen them with blatant lies if necessary,'” Mazyek told the paper. “It has nothing to do with humor,” he added.

Deutsche Welle, 19 February 2007

Meanwhile the German newspaper Spiegel blames divisions not on racism but on Muslims themselves, who are accused of creating “A parallel Muslim universe“