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Islam is not welcome in German, anti-immigration party says

Published

8 years ago

May 2, 2016

Islam is not welcome in German, anti-immigration party says

Germany’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD) says Islam is not welcome in Germany and religion is not compatible with constitution as the anti-immigration party also proposed banning minarets and burqas.

The call was made on Sunday at the party’s conference with members backing an election manifesto that says Islam is not compatible with the constitution while also supporting a call to ban minarets on mosques and the burqa.

The party which was set up three years ago has been buoyed by Europe’s refugee crisis, which saw the arrival of more than one million, mostly Muslims, in Germany last year.

The party has no MPs 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 per cent, presenting a serious challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and other established parties in the lead-up to the 2017 federal election.

In a noisy debate on the second day of a party congress, many of the 2,000 members 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,” said Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an AfD lawmaker from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, to loud applause.

Merkel has said freedom of religion for all is guaranteed by Germany’s constitution and has said on many occasions that Islam belongs to Germany.

Up to 2,000 leftwing demonstrators clashed with police on Saturday as they tried to break up the first full AfD conference.

About 500 people were briefly detained and 10 police officers were lightly injured, a police spokesman said.

The chapter of the AfD manifesto concerning Muslims is entitled “Islam is not a part of Germany”.

The manifesto demands a ban to minarets, the towers of a mosque from where the call to Muslim prayer is made, and the burqa, the all-encompassing body garment worn by some conservative Muslim women.

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