28 April 2017•Update: 28 April 2017
By Ayhan Simsek
BERLIN
The head of a mosque in southern Germany attacked with Molotov cocktails on Thursday night has told Anadolu Agency his community has lived for years in peace beside their neighbors.
Necati Coskun, the head of the Eyup Sultan mosque association in the town of Weil am Rhein, said unknown assailants threw at least four devices at the building, causing minor damage.
The latest attack has taken place amid a surge in anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany.
Thursday’s attempted arson was the third attack targeting mosques belonging to the Turkish-Muslim community in Germany over the last two weeks.
Coskun said members of the community were worried about growing anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim feeling.
“For many years we lived together peacefully; we have never done harm to anyone. Our mosques never interfered in politics, always remained neutral,” he told Anadolu Agency.
“We hope that the perpetrators will be swiftly arrested and brought to justice,” Coskun added.
The mosque’s security cameras captured images of a group of five people throwing devices at the building. Police have appealed to the public for help in identifying the suspects.
Mosque attacks
Last week, unknown assailants vandalized mosques in Freiburg and Leipzig, spray-painting Nazi symbols and anti-Turkish slogans on their walls.
It was not immediately clear whether these three attacks were coordinated.
They came after a heated public debate in Germany about Turkey’s April 16 constitutional referendum and the political choices of the three-million-strong Turkish community living in the country.
Many supported Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal for a presidential system.
Among the 700,000 Turkish expats who casted their ballots in Germany, 63 percent voted in favor of a presidential system in Turkey, while 39 percent voted against.
German politicians who backed the No campaign argued that support for Erdogan among Turkish expats was a sign that they were not well-integrated, and were not sensitive to issues of democracy and freedoms.
Several far-right politicians even called on Turks who backed the Yes campaign to leave Europe and return to Turkey.
Turkish community leaders sharply criticized such calls and warned against growing racism in Germany.
The EU’s largest economy, which received more than 1.1 million refugees mostly from Syria and Iraq, has witnessed growing anti-migrant sentiments in recent years, triggered by the propaganda of far-right parties.
