BERLIN, 16 September 2004 — The German government said yesterday it would try to stop an “Arab Islamic Congress” taking place in Berlin next month to rally support for “resistance and intifada” in Iraq and Israel.
“I will do everything I can to make sure that such a conference does not take place,” Interior Minister Otto Schily told reporters.
He said the government believed the event, announced on the Internet (http://www.anamoqawem.org/berlincall.htm) and planned for Oct. 1-3, was a threat to security and public order.
Schily said he would coordinate with the Foreign Ministry to try to stop would-be participants entering the country.
Organizers have confirmed their plans for the event but have not said where in Berlin they intend to hold it.
On their website, they urge Iraqi and Palestinian resistance and advocate “the liberation of all the Occupied Territories and countries in (the) struggle against the American-Zionist hegemony and occupation.”
In a letter to Schily, the Simon Wiesenthal Center described the planned meeting as “a political platform for radical jihad and a market for potential European youth recruits to the ranks of terrorism.”
The center — an international Jewish human rights group best known for tracking down former Nazis — urged the minister to stop the meeting, investigate its organizers and ban foreign participants from entering Germany.
Germans Have Negative View of Islam
Germans hold negative views about Islam and a big majority believe there is a “clash of civilizations” following the attack on a school on southern Russia earlier this month, a poll released yesterday said.
“Germans find Islam foreign and threatening,” said the head of Germany’s Allensbach polling agency, Elisabeth Noelle, in remarks published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
When asked what they think of in association with the word “Islam” some 93 percent of Germans said “oppression of women”, 83 percent said “terror”, 82 percent said “fanatics and radicals”, 70 percent said “dangerous”, 66 percent said “backward”, 45 percent said “hospitality” and 6 percent said both “tolerance” and “nice”.
