4 March 2011 - 20:30

A leading German security official has openly called on Muslims to spy in their local mosques amid an ongoing terror hysteria in the country, Saturday's edition of the daily Neuen Osnabruecker Zeitung reported.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The Interior Ministry of the North German State of Lower Saxony Uwe Schuenemann said security officials were 'hardly receiving any information' from inside the mosques.

He made clear it was the duty of Muslims in the mosques to point 'to possible
fanatics' among themselves.

Schuenemann urged what he labeled a 'security partnership with Muslim communities.'
His remarks come in the wake of a deepening Islamophobia which has sparked
major concern among Germany's four million-strong Muslim community.

Last November, a state senator in Berlin called on people to remain vigilant of 'Arabs and other strange-looking people.'

'When we see something in the neighborhood, say three strange-looking people move
in who do not allow their faces to be seen, and who speak only Arabic or another foreign language that we do not understand, then people should have a look and tell the authorities what is going on,' Berlin's Interior State Senator Erhart Koerting was quoted saying in the media.

His controversial statements sparked strong protest by Berlin's Turkish community.

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