DAR AL HARB - GERMANY: MOSLEMS DEMAND, DEMAND, DEMAND...GERMAN AUTHORITIES: "NOT SO FAST"

German Muslims rebuke ministers before summit

BERLIN: A row between the government and a leading German Islamic group has erupted two days before the interior ministry hosts a high-profile summit to boost the integration of the country’s 3.2mn Muslims.

Some Muslims, who want their associations to have equal status to German church communities, feel aggrieved that ministers have dismissed their efforts at greater co-ordination.
Earlier this month four leading groups set up a Co-ordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM), partly in response to government complaints that the fragmented nature of Germany’s Islamic groups made it difficult to discuss integration.

But the government has been reserved in its support, saying it represents only a fraction of the country’s Muslims.“(Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble) has relativised the Co-ordination Council of Muslims and talked it down,” Aiman Mazyek, general secretary of the Central Committee of Muslims, part of the KRM, told Westdeutsche Zeitung.

“I notice a lack of seriousness in this debate, I see a lack of good will,” he added.

The KRM says it represents 2,000 of the country’s 2,500 mosque communities but the government says only a small proportion of German Muslims belong to mosques.About 2.5mn of the country’s Muslims are of Turkish origin, many of whom are not organised into religious groupings.

“The KRM represents some 10% of Muslims. It can’t claim to represent the interests of all Muslims,” Integration Commissioner Maria Boehmer told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Boehmer also attacked one the KRM’s first demands – that boys and girls be separated for sports lessons.

“This is anything but an auspicious start,” she said.

The row highlights the sensitivities involved in tackling issues to be raised at tomorrow’s conference, such as religion lessons, imam training and Islamophobia in Germany, home to Western Europe’s second-biggest Muslim population after France.

The government is playing down expectations for the conference, a three-year project in which ministers meet every six months to discuss a range of subjects with Muslim delegates.Working groups, set up last September, will report back on some issues, but no conclusions are expected.

“This is a gradual, step-by-step process. This meeting is not be the end point,” said an interior ministry spokesman.

Top of the list for some Muslims is for Islam to get equal legal status to other religions in Germany, including churches which are partly funded by taxes.


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