Supporters of the Anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) hold German flags during a protest in Berlin, Germany, May 27, 2018
Lawmakers from different parties heavily criticized the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Thursday over its controversial motion demanding a ban on the Quran.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) accused the AfD of distorted generalizations about Islam and stereotyping Muslims as violent.
“Your allegations are malicious, discriminating and also destructive. What you are trying to achieve is not social peace but discrediting Islam and its believers,” CDU lawmaker Christoph de Vries said during a debate at the parliament.
Merkel’s coalition partner Social Democratic Party (SPD) also rejected the motion, saying that it was another attempt by the AfD to stigmatise Muslims.
An Iranian diplomat suspected of helping to plan a bomb attack against Iranians living in exile in France has been extradited to Belgium, German authorities announced Wednesday.Assadollah Assadi was arrested in the southern German state of Bavaria on July 1 after a Belgian court issued a European arrest warrant for him.German prosecutors stressed that Assadi cannot benefit from diplomatic immunity in the country as he was accredited in neighboring Austria and came for a holiday to Germany.Assadi is accused of providing explosives to a couple living in Belgium in order to carry out a bomb attack during a rally on June 30 in neighboring France of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella bloc of Iranian opposition groups in exile.Belgian police stopped the couple in their car allegedly before they could carry out the attack.Iran has dismissed the accusation and claims it is part of a plot to undermine ties between European capitals and Tehran.
Germany extradites Iranian diplomat to Belgium
“You are inciting hatred against Islam in a calculated political manoeuvre,” said SPD lawmaker Lars Castellucci.
“The big majority of Muslims in this country stand for democracy, they are loyal to our country,” he stressed.
The opposition Left Party lawmaker Christine Buchholz said AfD’s leader Alexander Gauland was increasingly resembling Adolf Hitler.
“AfD is trying to denigrate Islam with the same methods used by anti-Semites against Jews,” she said.
Buchholz accused the AfD conducting an anti-Muslim campaign by using passages from Quran, which were always taken out of context.
“The Left Party supports religious freedom of all people in this country,” she stressed.
The far-right AfD’s controversial motion, which was submitted to the Committee on Legal Affairs on Thursday for further debate, demands the government to take necessary measures to ban disseminating messages of the Quran.
The AfD scored record gains in federal elections last year and entered the parliament for the first time.
Adopting an explicitly anti-Islamic rhetoric, the AfD argued that Germany was under the threat of “Islamization”, especially after nearly one million refugees -- mostly from Syria and Iraq -- arrived in the country since 2015.