German Islam Conference Under Fire

A government-sponsored conference on Muslims in Germany has sparked a storm of criticism for focusing on security instead of tackling problems facing the sizable minority.

The Islam Conference should not be “another instrument of security policy,” Muslim scholar Armina Omerika told Deutsche Welle on Wednesday, March 30.
He said interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich’s security partnership idea promotes “the dubious culture of informing on other Muslims.”
A one-day conference was held in Germany on Tuesday to discuss the integration of German Muslims into society.
This year’s event was scheduled to discuss poverty and low education among German Muslims and how to ease friction between Muslims and the German school system.
Instead, the event focused on security and what Muslims should do to report terror threats.
Interior minister called for Muslim leaders to report what he said “radical” sermons by imams and tell police about conversations that could pose a threat to the country.
“The Islam conference shouldn’t be a security conference in disguise,” Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims (ZMD), said.
He questioned the benefits of the conference.
“I don’t know if this conference will happen again,” Mazyek, who boycotted the conference since last year, said.
“There’s no substance there. The socially relevant themes are missing.”

Discriminatory

Critics warn that focusing on security stumble efforts to integrate German Muslims into society.
It was discriminatory to “make a security conference out of an Islam conference,” said Sevim Dagdelen, immigration policy spokesperson for The Left.
Such an approach is more likely to breed exclusion than integration, she warned.
Germans were also critical of interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich’s insistence that Muslims were not part of German society.
“If you argue Muslims belong to Germany but not their religion, you throw the door wide open for Islamophobia,” said Bekir Alboga from the DITIB federation of mosques.
Friedrich stirred a storm earlier this month by saying that Islam has not history in Germany. The minister repeated the claim on Tuesday.
“The character of our country, our culture through the centuries, our value system is Christian and occidental,” he said.
Germany has between 3.8 and 4.3 million Muslims, making up some 5 percent of the total 82 million population, according to government-commissioned studies.
Germans have grown hostile to the Muslim presence recently, with a heated debate on the Muslim immigration into the country.
A recent poll by the Munster University found that Germans view Muslims more negatively than their European neighbors.
Germany’s daily Der Spiegel had warned last August that the country is becoming intolerant towards its Muslim minority.

Source: OnIslam