German
far-right party calls for ban on minarets and burqa
Alternative
für Deutschland conference says Islam is not compatible with
Germany’s constitution
Reuters
in Stuttgart
Sunday
1 May 2016 14.48 BST
Delegates from
Germany’s anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
backed an election manifesto on Sunday that says Islam is not
compatible with the country’s constitution and calls for a ban on
minarets and the burqa.
The AfD was set up
three years ago and has been buoyed by Europe’s migration crisis
and the arrival of more than a million mostly Muslim migrants in
Germany last year. The party has no presence in the federal
parliament in Berlin but has members in half of Germany’s 16
regional state assemblies.
Opinion polls give
AfD support of up to 14%, presenting a serious challenge to Angela
Merkel’s conservatives and other established parties in the run-up
to the 2017 federal election. Other parties have ruled out a
coalition with the AfD.
German riot police
arrest protesters outside far-right party conference – video
In a raucous and
highly emotional debate on the second day of a party congress, many
of the 2,000 delegates cheered calls from the podium for measures
against “Islamic symbols of power” and jeered a plea for dialogue
with Germany’s Muslims.
“Islam is foreign
to us and for that reason it cannot invoke the principle of religious
freedom to the same degree as Christianity,”Hans-Thomas
Tillschneider, an AfD politician from the state of Saxony-Anhalt,
said to loud applause.
Merkel has said on
many occasions that freedom of religion is guaranteed by Germany’s
constitution and that Islam is welcome in the country.
As many as 2,000
leftwing demonstrators clashed with police on Saturday as they tried
to disrupt the AfD conference. About 500 people were briefly detained
and 10 police officers were slightly injured, a police spokesman
said.
The chapter of the
AfD manifesto concerning Muslims is titled “Islam is not a part of
Germany”.
In Sunday’s
debate, one delegate’s call for greater understanding drew jeers
and loud whistles.
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“I call for a
differentiation and urge everybody to visit their local Muslim
communities and initiate a dialogue,” said Ernst-August Roettger, a
delegate from the northern city of Lüneburg.
He was speaking in
support of an amendment that called for acceptance of everybody’s
religious freedom and for the party not to regard all Muslims as
extremists. Delegates rejected the amendment.
Germany is home to
nearly four million Muslims, who make up about 5% of the population.
Many of the longer established communities came from Turkey to find
work, but those who have arrived over the past year have mostly been
fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last month the head
of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims likened the AfD’s
attitude towards his community to that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis
towards the Jews.
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