Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has called upon Germany’s churches to promote the integration of Muslims, days before government-sponsored talks with Muslim groups are due to resume.
“I am a bit sad that the state is marching ahead. In fact, I would have wished for the churches to lead this dialogue,” de Maiziere said at an ecumenical gathering in Munich. Christian churches needed to make more effort to come to terms with Islam, he added.
“The churches are doing too little and the state is doing too little,” constitutional law expert Gerhard Robbers said during the discussion.
He said that Muslims were not fully recognised as German citizens.
“There are too many religious policy jibes,” Robbers added, referring, for example, to a ban on headscarves in German schools.
“Such bans do not really take Muslims seriously as citizens of this country,” Robbers said.
Tomorrow the second round begins of a government-sponsored Islam Conference, addressing Islamic integration issues in Germany.
The Central Council of Muslims, announced on Wednesday that it would not take part in the talks, saying they lacked concrete goals and did not sufficiently tackle Islamophobia.
“I regret that, but it will also work without the Central Council of Muslims,” de Maiziere said.
The minister defended an earlier decision to exclude from the talks a Muslim group backed by the Turkish fundamentalist Milli Gorus movement, which is under investigation and suspected of subversion.
“I did not want to sit at a table with an organisation in this situation,” de Maiziere said.
Robbers’ demands included greater inclusion of Muslims in German broadcasting organisations, and said Islamic religious communities should be recognised by the law as official corporations, as was the case with the Catholic and Protestant churches.
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