SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Berlin mosque invites homophobic imam

An Islamic cleric who has called for the death penalty for homosexuals has been invited to speak at a mosque in the Berlin neighbourhood of Neukölln, the daily Tagesspiegel reported Thursday.

Berlin mosque invites homophobic imam
Photo: DPA

Imam Bilal Phillips, a Canadian of Jamaican descent, was to speak Saturday on the topic “Islam, the misunderstood religion.” But the mosque later said he would have to postpone due to a scheduling conflict.

Pierre Vogel, a prominent German convert to Islam, will still attend the event at the mosque. Phillips is well-known on the internet for videos in which he explains homosexuality is a “very normal mortal sin” because it endangers the family structure.

Phillips was invited to speak by the Al-Nur mosque in Neukölln, which is under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence service for its associations with radical preachers, the newspaper reported. Saturday’s lecture is part of an apparent nation-wide tour by Phillips and Vogel.

In a letter to Berlin’s interior minister, Ehrhart Körting, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Berlin (LSVD) demanded that the city’s government take all legal measures to prevent radical imams preaching hate.

“So far as we see it, this man’s statements fulfill the legal criteria for racial incitement,” a crime under German law, LSVD spokesman Alexander Zinn told the Tagesspiegel.

On the mosque’s web site, the event invitation says: “The picture average people have of Islam is influenced by terror, forced headscarf wearing and honour murders. In a country where freedom of the press is synonymous with a license to lie, this fact can’t really be surprising.”

Calls to the Al-Nur mosque by The Local for comment were not returned.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

German police on Wednesday arrested a 74-year-old man suspected of hitting a former mayor of Berlin in the head, the latest in a rash of assaults against politicians in Germany.

Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

The German government condemned the “growing despicable attacks”, stressing that the “climate of intimidation, of violence” was something that could not be accepted.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz blasted the attacks against politicians as “outrageous and cowardly”, stressing that violence did not belong in a democratic debate.

Franziska Giffey was at a library on Tuesday afternoon when the suspect came up from behind her to slug her in the head and neck with a bag containing hard objects, police said.

Giffey, who is now Berlin state’s economy minister and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), was treated in hospital for light injuries.

The detained suspect was previously known to investigators over “state security and hate crimes”, said police, adding that they were investigating the motive of the attack.

Prosecutors were also considering if the man should be sent to psychiatric care because of indications that he might be mentally ill.

Giffey said she was “feeling well after the initial scare”. But she was “concerned and shaken about a growing ‘free wild culture’ in which people who are engaging politically in our country are increasingly exposed to attacks that are supposedly justified and acceptable.

“We live in a free and democratic country, in which everyone can be free to express his or her opinions,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“But there is a clear line — and that is violence against people,” she added.

Berlin’s current mayor Kai Wegner said anyone who attacked politicians was “attacking our democracy.

“We will not tolerate this,” he added, vowing to examine “tougher sentences for attacks against politicians”.

Nazi salutes

A European member of parliament, also from the SPD, had to be hospitalised last week after four people attacked him as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden.

Matthias Ecke, 41, needed an operation for serious injuries suffered in the attack, which Scholz denounced as a threat to democracy. Four suspects, aged between 17 and 18, are being investigated over the incident.

READ ALSO: Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

All four are believed to have links to the far-right group known as “Elblandrevolte”, according to German media.

Dresden has been a hotspot for assaults against politicians, with another case reported on Tuesday.

S-Bahn in Dresden

An S-Bahn train drives through Dresden. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Robert Michael

A politician, identified by police only as a 47-year-old from the Green party, was threatened and spat on. She was putting up campaign posters for the European elections when a man came up, pushed her to the side and tore down two posters.

READ ALSO: Germany unveils new plan to fight far-right extremism

He insulted and threatened the politician, while a woman joined in and spat on the victim, police said. Officers arrested both suspects, police added, identifying them as a 34-year-old German man and a 24-year-old woman.

Both were in a group standing at the area and who had begun making the banned Hitler salute when the politician began putting up the posters.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year. Nevertheless, that was down from the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when the last general elections were held.

By Hui Min Neo

SHOW COMMENTS