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ARCHITECTURE

German firm to build massive mosque in Algeria

A German firm has signed a spectacular contract to build the world's third-largest mosque in Algeria during Angela Merkel's first visit to the north African country this week.

Published: 17 July 2008 15:46 CEST
German firm to build massive mosque in Algeria
Photo: DPA

Algeria inked a deal with Frankfurt architecture firm KSP Engel and Zimmerman and Darmstadt engineering team Krebs and Kiefer to build the 40,000 capacity mosque by 2012. The minaret will be 214 metres high, third only to height to mosques in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The German companies won the bid to build the structure last year, but the contract was not signed until Thursday.

Members of the economic delegation at the meeting signalled that more deals between the two countries were in the making, including the delivery of four frigates from Germany worth €4 billion.

“The talks are going well,” said Deputy Economy Minister Bernd Pfaffenbach. “The Chancellor’s visit will prove to be beneficial.”

Chancellor Merkel, who also celebrated her 54th birthday on Thursday, said she wanted to strengthen Germany’s relationship with Algeria, the third largest exporter of natural gas to the EU. “We can and want to grow,” she said.

Although Algeria ranks 59th on the list of countries served by German exporters, trade between the two nations is growing quickly with an increase in exports of 20 percent in the last year.

RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Published: 26 January 2023 15:10 CET
Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

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