GERMANY: MOSQUE NOT WELCOME IN OUR TOWN

Mosque row exposes Germany's integration challenges

BERLIN (Reuters) - Abdul Basit Tariq serves tea and biscuits, removes his black cap and chats in English and German about how residents in the German capital oppose his plans to build a new mosque on the site of an old sauerkraut factory.

The imam of Berlin's Ahmadiyya Muslim community says people in the Pankow-Heinersdorf suburb in former communist east of the city are good but they have the wrong idea about Islam.
"(They) don't like the idea of foreigners coming," he said, sitting beneath a blue placard which read: "Islam means peace. Love for all. Hate for nobody."

Residents, who have launched a "No Mosque In Pankow!" campaign, say the Ahmadiyya movement -- which defines itself as Muslim but is not recognized by some mainstream Muslim groups because of its divergent beliefs -- is a fundamentalist Islamic sect that wants to abolish democracy.

The row over the new mosque goes to the heart of an increasingly noisy Europe-wide debate about the integration of Muslim societies.

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1) Mosque row exposes Germany's integration challenges