Ahlul Bayt News Agency, Berlin, Germany -- The Secretary General of the German Islam Council Burhan Kesici said, 'It's our impression that Germany's image on the international scene has been rather tarnished, especially since it is always being mentioned (by foreigners) that Germans are racists,' he said.
Kesici warned of a growing Islamophobia in the aftermath of the Sarrazin
scandal.
'We view Islamophobia is a 'relatively big' problem because we are 'not harassed as Turks and Arabs but as Muslims,' the German Turkish Muslim activist added.
He urged the center-right German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel 'to
intensify the dialog with Muslims.'
'We had the government talks with Muslim organizations as part of the German Islam Conference which was 'a farce,' Kesici said.
Any new talks with the government must dwell on the needs of Muslims and be 'more intense and better organized,' he added.
Germany has around 4.3 million Muslims in a population of 82 million, of which
2.5 million are Turks.
Faced with daily verbal slurs and racial discrimination, Germany's Muslim
community is also grappling with major educational problems for their children
and a chronic lack of employment opportunity.
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