‘Over 800 incidents’ targeting mosques in Germany since 2014
Mosques continue to be targeted by neo-Nazis or left-wing extremists, but attacks are not properly investigated by German authorities, according to a new report.
Germany, a country of over 83 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France.
More than 800 mosques in Germany have been the targets of threats and attacks since 2014, but most of the cases were not properly investigated.
Brandeilig, an initiative of rights group FAIR International, said in a report on Friday that it recorded nearly 840 incidents of attacks, vandalism and threats between 2014 and 2022.
A detailed analysis of the crimes in 2018 revealed that perpetrators remained unidentified in most of the attacks, fuelling further attacks against Muslim worship sites by neo-Nazis or left-wing extremists.
Among the 120 attacks recorded against mosques in 2018, only in nine cases perpetrators could be identified.
“This rate is a cause for concern,” Brandeilig’s experts stressed, pointing out that in at least 20 cases, which included arson, suspects intended to cause death or great bodily harm.
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Attacks targeting mosques
Brandeilig founded Germany’s first reporting centre for attacks on mosques — and its experts say "almost none of the (reported) incidents could be solved."
Left-wing extremists and followers of the YPG/PKK terror group were behind several attacks targeting mosques, while majority of them were committed by right-wing extremists or neo-Nazi groups, according to the report.
Germany, a country of over 83 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country’s nearly 5.3 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin.
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