Category Archives: Germany

Thousands rally to thwart far-right march on Duisburg mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Duisburg anti-fascist demonstration

In the western German town of Duisburg, some 5,000 people took part in a peaceful demonstration on Sunday to protest against the right-wing populist Pro-NRW party.

The anti-fascist demonstrators joined a rally organized by the German trade union federation, church groups and politcal parties at the city’s Merkez Mosque – the largest mosque in Germany – which was opened in 2008.

About 150 people attending the far-right Pro-NRW event demanded a ban on minarets, like the one passed in a Swiss referendum last year. The demonstration had originally been planned as a march to the mosque.

At the same time, elsewhere in the city, a further 150 supporters of the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NDP) protested against the “islamization” of Germany.

A large number of police kept the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators separated. “Apart from a sit-down street blockade by about 50 protesters, who had to be carried from the road, there were no unusual events,” said police spokesman Ramon van der Maat. “Our plan worked.”

In the morning, Social Democratic Party (SPD) chairman Sigmar Gabriel had visited the mosque along with the party’s leading candidate for state elections in North Rhine Westphalia, Hannelore Kraft.

The state’s Interior Minister Ingo Wolf praised the work of the police, adding that the Pro-NRW group had originally said that 1,000 people would attend.

The fact that only 150 turned up for the event showed that “xenophobic and antidemocratic rallying cries have no place in a cosmopolitan democracy,” said Wolf.

Deutsche Welle, 29 March 2010

See also “International right-wingers gather for EU-wide minaret ban“.

International right-wingers gather for EU-wide minaret ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

This Saturday, politicians representing right-wing conservative parties from across Europe will descend on the Horst Palace to discuss the dangers of Islam. Delegates from the Belgian nationalists Vlaams Belang will be there as will politicians from Geert Wilders’s Dutch Party for Freedom and the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Others from Sweden, Austria and Eastern Europe are also on the invite list.

The hosts are a relatively new group of German right-wing conservatives called Pro-NRW (an abbreviation of the German state North Rhine-Westphalia) and the goal of the conference is clear: to follow in Switzerland’s footsteps and ban minarets across Europe. And they want to use a provision of the European Union’s new Lisbon Treaty to do it.

“I don’t think that minarets are part of our heritage,” conference attendee Filip Dewinter, floor leader for Vlaams Belang in the Flemish parliament, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “They are symbols of radical Islam. The question is whether Islam is a religion like Protestantism and Catholicism and for me it is not. It is a political system, it is a way of life and it is one that is not compatible with ours.”

Pro-NRW and the other right-wing parties were galvanized when Swiss voters last November passed a ban on the construction of new minarets in the country. Since then, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which launched the referendum, have become the darlings of the European right. Indeed, the SVP has loaned their controversial campaign poster, which depicts missile-like minarets jutting out of a Swiss flag behind an ominous, niqab-wearing Muslim woman, to Pro-NRW for its campaign in Germany. And anti-minaret movements on the Swiss model have sprung up around Europe.

Dewinter has recently taken a closer look at whether a provision in the new Lisbon Treaty allowing for citizens’ initiatives could be used to push through a Europe-wide ban on the construction of minarets. On Saturday, delegates at the Anti-Minaret Conference will discuss whether to begin collecting the 1 million signatures such a path would require.

Spiegel, 26 March 2010

US State Department report: Europe biased against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The annual report of US State Department on human rights has warned of increasing concern that discrimination against Muslims was on the rise in Europe.

The human rights report for 2009 cited Switzerland’s ban on the construction of minarets on mosques enacted in November, as well as continued bans or restrictions on head scarves and burqa worn by Muslims in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The report said: “Discrimination against Muslims in Europe has been an increasing concern.” Germany and the Netherlands have prohibitions against teachers wearing head scarves or burqa while on the job, and France bans the wearing of the religious garb in public, the report said.

The report particularly focused on problems in the Netherlands, where Muslims number about 850,000, saying that Muslims face societal resentment based on the belief that Islam is not compatible with Western values.

The report blamed right-wing politicians for playing a role in fuelling the resentment. It said: “Major incidents of violence against Muslims were rare, but minor incidents, including intimidation, brawls, vandalism, and graffiti with abusive language, were common.”

Al Jazeera, 11 March 2010

Poll shows support for ‘burka’ ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than half of voters in four other major European states back a push by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to ban women from wearing the burka, according to an opinion poll for the Financial Times.

As Mr Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban the wearing of the burka in public places, the FT’s latest Harris poll shows the move is not just strongly supported in France, but wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.

The poll shows some 70 per cent of respondents in France said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment which covers the female body from head to toe. There was similar sentiment in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban.

The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual’s right to full expression of religious views. But here, some 57 per cent of people still favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down on minority rights, some 50 per cent favoured a ban.

“This poll shows that the number of people in France opposed to the burka is going up and that is the product of debate on burka and national identity,” said Professor Patrick Weil, an expert on national identity at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. “But the figure is clearly going up in other countries in Europe like the UK as well, and that reflects the growing concern that there is about this issue in some parts of Europe.”

In the US, concerns about the issue are far less strong than in Europe. Just 33 per cent of Americans surveyed by Harris supported a ban, a far lower figure than the 44 per cent who said they supported it.

In Europe, while opposition to the burka was strong, few respondents said they were prepared to support the ban as part of a wider drive towards secularism in their country. Asked if they would support the burka ban if it were accompanied by a clampdown on wearing all religious icons such as the Christian crucifix and the Jewish cappel, only 22 per cent of French people said they supported such a move. In Britain, just 9 per cent of people said they would back such a move.

Financial Times, 1 March 2010

German dentist refuses to treat teen named ‘Jihad’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An orthodontist in the state of Baden-Württemberg has reportedly turned a 16-year-old boy out of her practice because she was offended by his name – “Cihad,” an alternate spelling for “Jihad,” which she interpreted to mean “holy war.”

The doctor in Donaueschingen told local daily Schwarzwälder Bote on Friday that she believed his name was a declaration of war against all non-Muslims and refused to treat him.

The Local, 5 February 2010

Far-right rhetoric fuels opposition to minaret in German town

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Volklingen_minaretA small Muslim community in a western German town would like to build a minaret on its mosque. But the plan has triggered passionate opposition from locals, many of whom rely on rhetoric from the extreme right in railing against the “symbol of Islam’s quest for power.”

“Willkommen,” reads the stencilled print on the wall along the riverside boardwalk in the small town of Völklingen. Not content to just welcome its German guests, however, the message is translated into a number of languages. “Bienvenue … bienvenidos … velkommen,” it reads. And “hosgeldiniz,” a nod to the city’s substantial Turkish population.

Elsewhere in the city – particularly in the quarter known as Wehrden – Muslim immigrants may not feel quite as welcome. A small mosque on the banks of the Saar River there has applied for a permit to build a small minaret on its roof – triggering a wave of at-times vehement protest reminiscent of the fuss surrounding theNovember 2009 referendum in Switzerland to ban minarets in the country.

“I am against the Islamification of our fatherland!” reads a message, posted by “Tommy” on the Web site of the local paper Saarbrücker Zeitung. “Islam is the greatest threat facing humanity,” he adds.

The debate in Völklingen is once again showing how quickly right-wing rhetoric can cross over into the mainstream when it comes to debates on Islam in Europe. Local right-wing extremists – two of whom are in the Völklingen city council – have argued that minarets are “symbols of Turkish dominance.”

The local news paper has used the exact same rhetoric on its editorial pages. “This minaret should not be built,” the Saarbrücker Zeitung wrote in late January. “It symbolizes Islam’s quest for power and is nothing less than a provocation. In the course of the Muslim conquests, minarets were first used as watch towers and only subsequently as religious symbols. Following the violent seizure of new territories, minarets were built as manifestations of Muslim rule.”

Minaret opponents are now looking into the possibility of holding a referendum on the issue in Völklingen.

Spiegel, 5 February 2010

Far-right Swedish millionaire gives €5m to German anti-Islam party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro NRWSwedish far-right businessman Patrik Brinkmann has announced he will pour €5 million into the coffers of Pro NRW, an anti-Islam populist party based in Cologne. In a report to air Sunday night on Germany‘s public broadcaster WDR, Brinkmann says he fears Germany is becoming “too foreign” and that Sharia law will be introduced in the country.

“However, there are no, or very few, politicians who take this seriously,” Brinkmann said. “That’s why I believe that a new right wing (in Germany) can not only succeed, but in five or ten years be as large as the FPÖ in Austria or the SVP in Switzerland,” he added, referring to Austria’sFreedom Party and the Swiss People‘s Party, two far-right groups which have enjoyed a certain amount of electoral success.

The millionaire, who reportedly already has ties to Germany’s extreme-right NPD and DVU parties, will finance a building for Pro NRW to be used as an anti-Islam centre.

The Local, 23 January 2010

‘Jew-hating, Islamophobia incomparable’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Germany’s largest Jewish community has sharply criticized the parallel drawn between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia by historian Wolfgang Benz. Maya Zehden, a spokeswoman for the 12,000-member Berlin Jewish community, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that “Benz’s position has not changed. It is not beneficial when one compares anti-Semitism with Islamophobia.”

Benz, the first non-Jewish head of the Berlin Center for Anti-Semitism Research, has been embroiled in an international controversy since he introduced his thesis that “the fury of the new enemies of Islam parallels the older rage of anti-Semites against the Jews.” In last Monday’s edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which reaches more than 1.1 million readers each day, Benz wrote an article equating anti-Semitism with hatred of Islam.

Jerusalem Post, 10 January 2010