News / Germany

German Islamic federation official compares anti-Islam AfD party to Nazi regime

Tuesday, 19 April 2016 7:49 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 19 April 2016 7:48 AM ]

Head of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims Aiman Mazyek

The leader of an Islamic federation in Germany has likened the attitude of the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration AfD political party toward the Muslim community to that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party toward Jews.

“It is the first time since Hitler’s Germany that a whole religious community is discredited and existentially threatened,” Aiman Mazyek, the head of Germany’s Central Council of Muslims, said in an interview with Germany’s public radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk.

He added, “The AfD is riding a wave of Islamophobia. This is not an anti-Islam path, it is an anti-democratic path.”

Mazyek was reacting to earlier remarks by AfD’s deputy chief Beatrix von Storch and her deputy Alexander Gauland, who labeled Islam as incompatible with the German constitution.

Beatrix von Storch of the German anti-Muslim and anti-immigration AfD political party (L) is pictured alongside the party’s founder Bernd Lucke (R) in 2014.

They also called for a ban on minarets and full veils as well as tight control over mosques and Islamic religious schools in Germany.

“I think the AfD is playing with people’s fears,” Burhan Kesici, the head of the Islamic Council, told public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.

“We had a wave of refugees last year, we have a lot of unemployment, we have other problems. I think now they are trying to score, using Islam to attract new voters,” he added.

The deputy leader of the opposition Green political party, Konstantin von Notz, also censured the recent anti-Islam comments by the AfD officials, saying that the party is trying to expand its voter base by means of such tactics.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert

Moreover, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said that the German constitution guarantees its citizens the right to freedom of religion.

He also said the German leader has emphasized several times that Islam “undoubtedly belongs to Germany.”

The European Council’s General Secretary Thorbjörn Jagland also condemned the AfD’s stance, saying that the party’s opinion was “contradictory to European values.”

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