(Deutsche Welle) Some 640,000 Germans now have an alarm gun license, some 30,000 more than at the end of last year, according to research by the Rheinische Post newspaper. The number has risen hugely since 2014, when some 260,000 people carried such a license. […]
(Deutsche Welle) The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has launched a satirical YouTube channel in the hope of stopping young people from becoming radicalized via the video sharing platform. The project launched by the NRW Office for the Protection of the Constitution […]
(Deutsche Welle) A 33-year-old Syrian man was charged in the western Germany city of Koblenz on Friday with committing war crimes. Authorities say they … have concrete evidence that the man fought with the “Islamic State” (IS) terror group for two years, […]
(Deutsche Welle) When Mokhmad Abdurakhmanov, a Chechen refugee living in the Bavarian city of Augsburg, shared a DW article on his Facebook page last year, he never imagined he’d end up in legal trouble. But this week a court in Augsburg fined […]
(Deutsche Welle) The man accused of the killing that led to a week of far-right violence last year in Chemnitz was found guilty of manslaughter at a court in Dresden on Thursday, and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. […]
(Deutsche Welle) The Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeastern Syria on Monday handed to Germany four children whose parents were part of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) terror outfit, Kurdish sources and a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry said on Monday. There […]
(Deutsche Welle) German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced a tough response to Syrian refugees who leave Germany for holidays in their home country. “If somebody, a Syrian refugee, regularly takes holidays in Syria, he cannot honestly claim to be persecuted in Syria,” Seehofer told […]
(Deutsche Welle) As the neighboring Netherlands begins policing the wearing of burqas, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) are calling for a burqa ban of Germany’s own. Julia Klöckner, who leads the provincial Rhineland-Palatinate branch of the party and is the No. 2 […]
(Deutsche Welle) How many people is Germany currently deporting? According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s figures for last year, 23,617 rejected asylum-seekers were deported in 2018. This sounds like a lot. But in the same period, about 31,000 deportations failed […]
(Deutsche Welle) Plans to no longer serve children pork or gelatin-containing products like gummy bears at two daycare centers in the eastern German city of Leipzig prompted a wave of criticism online and made headlines across the country on Tuesday. The mass-circulation […]
(Deutsche Welle) Police in Germany’s western state of North Rhine-Westphalia carried out raids against suspected Islamist extremists on Thursday. Officers were searching for “concrete indications” of a planned attack, authorities said. Sniffer dogs were present as the police searched for explosives, but […]
(Deutsche Welle) The latest edition of the Bertelsmann Foundation’s bi-annual “Religion Monitor” interview survey published on Thursday found religious tolerance in Germany to be sustained but Islam to be having a hard time, perceived by many to be negative. As a result […]
(Deutsche Welle) On its third try, Germany’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) will be able to kick controversial anti-Islam author Thilo Sarrazin from its ranks, an arbitration court ruled on Thursday. The former Berlin senator intends to appeal the ruling. “We will try […]
(Deutsche Welle) A 32-year-old German woman on Friday was sentenced to five years in prison for being a member of the “Islamic State” (IS) terrorist organization. Sabine S. converted to Islam and moved to Syria and Iraq from the end of 2013 […]
(Deutsche Welle) More than 80% of European Jews aged 16 to 34 strongly identify with being Jewish, and an equally high number of respondents believe anti-Semitism is a growing problem in their countries. According to the “Young Jews in Contemporary Europe” report […]
(Deutsche Welle) Nora T. is believed to have witnessed the agonizing death of her 5-year-old Yazidi daughter while they were both kept as slaves by a couple affiliated with “Islamic State” in Iraq in 2015. German national Jennifer W. is on trial in Munich […]
(Deutsche Welle) The German government has lost track of more than 160 German “Islamic State” (IS) supporters who traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the terror group, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper has reported. The figure from the Interior Ministry was […]
(Deutsche Welle) A new report published Tuesday proposes a concrete solution to Germany’s ongoing dilemma about how to educate Islamic religious leaders. The goal is to create a seminar that would offer graduates of Islamic theology institutes in Germany the possibility to […]
(Deutsche Welle) A new report published on Wednesday found that Islamophobic attacks in Germany were down significantly in 2019 compared to the previous two years. The information was published in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung following a parliamentary inquiry from the Left party. In […]
(Deutsche Welle) Calls of “Allahu Akbar” [“God is great”] by young Muslims wearing long gowns and vests outside Cologne’s main rail station culminated on Wednesday in counter-accusations between city police and the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD). Police chief Uwe […]
(Deutsche Welle) Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters snaked through the streets of the German capital on Saturday shouting anti-Israel slogans against the backdrop of rising concerns about anti-Semitism in the country. Of the 2,000 banner and flag-waving protesters in the al-Quds march some […]
(Deutsche Welle) The Yazidi Women’s Council has filed a lawsuit against Germany’s justice and interior ministers, alleging obstruction of justice, according to German media reports. The interest group accuses the government of failing to prosecute German supporters of the “Islamic State” (IS) militia […]
(Deutsche Welle) The day that Elke Müller dreads so much is not long off — the day her daughter Anna turns 18. “When she is of age, I can no longer legally hold her back,” Müller told DW. And then, she fears, […]
(Deutsche Welle) Two senior German politicians have called for a more progressive form of Islam in order to align the religion with the European way of life. Health Minister Jens Spahn and Schleswig-Holstein State Premier Daniel Günther published the appeal Thursday in […]
(Deutsche Welle) German police carried out early-morning raids at apartments in 11 cities on Wednesday as part of an operation targeting organized crime. Hundreds of officers were involved in the raids in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, focusing on the Cologne […]
(Deutsche Welle) The retrial of seven alleged members of a self-proclaimed “Shariah Police” vigilante group began in the western city of Wuppertal on Monday. The men were cleared of wrongdoing in 2016, but the case is now being heard again following a […]
(Deutsche Welle) The distribution of Islam-related questions on beer mats in the towns of Maintal and Offenbach near Frankfurt has been harshly criticized. The mats show questions on Islam written in the local Hesse dialect. On the back, a QR code can […]
(Deutsche Welle) The trial of a 31-year-old Islamist from Russia who allegedly planned a bomb attack in Berlin began on Thursday. Federal prosecutors accuse Magomed-Ali C. of planning the attack, most likely on a shopping center in the north of the capital, […]
(Deutsche Welle) A German court on Thursday ordered the early release from jail of one of Germany’s most renowned Salafists. Sven Lau had been serving a sentence of 5 1/2 years for aiding terrorism. Lau was convicted in July 2017 of supporting Jamwa, an Islamist […]
(Deutsche Welle) Chancellor Angela Merkel joined dozens of young people of immigrant background in Berlin on Tuesday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Germany’s Basic Law, or constitution. The event was hosted by Deutschlandstiftung Integration (DSI), a foundation that in 2012 founded […]
(Deutsche Welle) It was the first time Thomas Haldenwang, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, had hosted his agency’s traditional symposium. The event on Monday in Berlin was entitled “Mobilization Capability in Political Extremism” — […]
(Deutsche Welle) A court in the southeastern German town of Amberg on Friday handed a jail term of two years and seven months to an 18-year-old Iranian who carried out arbitrary attacks on passersby in the town shortly before New Year’s Eve in […]
(Deutsche Welle) “I was an honor killing” and “The bundle under this shroud is me”: Through sentences like these, an off-screen voice speaks in the name of Hatun Aynur Sürücü, who was shot by one of her brothers on the street in 2005. The film A Regular Woman unsparingly […]
(Deutsche Welle) The United Nations on Friday said Hungary was deliberately depriving rejected asylum-seekers awaiting deportation of food, in violation of international law. “According to reports, since August 2018, at least 21 migrants awaiting deportation had been deprived of food by the […]
(Deutsche Welle) Islamic veils and headscarves remain the subject of heated public debate in Germany. Some view them as part and parcel of religious freedom; others as a symbol of women’s oppression in Islam. The German court system has already taken up […]
(Deutsche Welle) A German court on Monday opened a trial against a 20-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker for murdering an 85-year-old sleeping pensioner last year in the small town of Wittenburg. Details of the case: The asylum-seeker is accused of slitting the pensioner’s throat. […]
(Deutsche Welle) Germany will put off ruling on asylum applications for some Syrians pending an assessment of the security situation in the war-torn country, according to a report on Saturday. Funke Media Group, citing the Interior Ministry, said for the past several […]
(Deutsche Welle) Right-wing populist attitudes have become “normal” in Germany’s mainstream, said authors of a new study presented by the left-wing Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin on Thursday. “The center is losing its footing and its democratic orientation,” researchers said. The foundation […]
(Deutsche Welle) A deep-seated mistrust is noticeable, even from inside the car, as we drive slowly through the streets of Dinslaken-Lohberg. Due to bad weather, only a few people are outside, following us with their glances. “That’s normal in Lohberg,” social worker […]
(Deutsche Welle) When Jenan Moussa, an acclaimed war reporter for the Arab TV channel Al Aan, received the contents of a smart phone from a “trusted source,” she immediately knew she had been handed a treasure trove. The phone, she says, belonged […]
(Deutsche Welle) In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) — Germany’s domestic intelligence agency — warned against an increasing threat posed by the return of “Islamic […]
(Deutsche Welle) Since he became the first rabbi to complete an internship with the German military chaplaincy in 2004, Konstantin Pal has fought to make the Bundeswehr more open to different religions. Back then he accompanied a Catholic priest who was assigned to […]
(Deutsche Welle) Police carried out raids across Germany on Wednesday targeting charities suspected of providing “financial and propaganda” support to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the interior ministry said. Around 90 properties in ten states were searched, with the focus of the raids targeting […]
(Deutsche Welle) The German Foreign Ministry said Friday it had brought several children of convicted “Islamic State” (IS) militants back to Germany from Iraq. The returns were carried out with the consent of the parents, a ministry source said, adding that the number of […]
(Deutsche Welle) Forty-three-year-old imam Murat Gül is president of the Islamic Federation of Berlin and teaches Islam at the local Rosa Parks primary school. “Ever since I was a young boy, I had a love for the Koran,” said Gül, who was […]
(Deutsche Welle) Germans with dual nationality who join foreign terrorist militias will lose their citizenship in the future, the cabinet decided on Wednesday. “Someone who goes abroad and actually participates in combat operations for a terrorist militia shows that they have turned […]
(Deutsche Welle) Muslim head coverings have always been a controversial topic, as they embody so many issues, whether women’s rights worldwide or Western prejudice and discrimination against Muslims. Now that the first exhibition dedicated to fashion consciousness of women in Islam is […]
(Deutsche Welle) The only Muslim kindergarten in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate lost its appeal to stay open after an administrative court confirmed state officials’ concerns about the school’s ties to an Islamist ideology. The state’s decision to revoke Al Nur kindergarten’s license was […]
(Deutsche Welle) Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has faced massive criticism from Germany’s local authorities after his federal budget plans show he wants to slash their means for integrating refugees and asylum-seekers. But at a press conference on Wednesday after a meeting of […]
(Deutsche Welle) The Bavarian constitutional court on Monday rejected an appeal by an Islamic religious community to overturn a ban on judges and prosecutors wearing headscarves, saying that justice officials in particular were obliged to be neutral in questions of religion and ideology. The […]
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