Like Christian Easter and Jewish Passover celebrations a few weeks ago, in Germany the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is taking place this year in the shadow of Covid-19. This means that much of the regular festive programme is falling flat: mosques have been closed since mid-March, meaning that believers cannot pray or socialise at…
Germany has one of the highest numbers of confirmed cases of the novel Corona virus (Covid-19) in Europe. Emergency measures designed to slow the spread of the disease mean that ordinary public life has ground to a halt. In a raft of sweeping steps announced on March 16, the German federal and regional governments prohibited…
Over the past twenty years, the Federal Republic of Germany has witnessed a slew of court cases surrounding Muslim women’s right to wear the hijab in different situations. Much litigation has revolved around two sites: schools and teaching personnel on the one hand, and courts and judicial employees on the other hand. Gradually, after years…
In many ways, German politics is notable for its lack of diversity. For instance, no minister in the current government is non-white; none of them possess what in Germany is referred to as a ‘migration background’ – a slippery term that in politico-administrative parlance refers to everyone with at least one parent born outside of…
Germany has been rocked by one of the worst far-right attacks in its recent history: at around 10pm local time on the evening of Wednesday, February 19, a gunman opened fire on two Shisha bars in the town of Hanau, around 25km from Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt. Racially motivated gun attacks on two hookah establishments…
