Football players’ meeting with Erdogan causes uproar in Germany

Germany is a nation crazy for football. As the country gears up for this year’s world cup in Russia, the national team’s coach, Joachim Löw, announced his preliminary squad on May 15, signalling the onset of the countdown to the tournament. Two footballers posing with President Erdoğan Yet the squad presentation was overshadowed by politics: On…

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Old and new forms of racism in Germany: Ethnic hatred and Islamophobia revisited

Are the rising levels of Islamophobic hate crimes in Germany indicative of a new form of racism? Yes, says Yasemin Shooman, researcher at the Technical University of Berlin and director of the Jewish-Islamic Forum at Berlin’s renowned Jewish Museum. ‘Immigrant’ = ‘Muslim’ The backdrop to Shooman’s argument is the de facto Islamisation of immigration debates. While…

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“Hello, I am a Muslim” event launched across Europe, Canada, and Australia to counter fears and prejudices against Muslims

The event, organised by the Islamic Community Milli Gorus (ICMG) sees young Muslims promote mutual understanding through the “Hello, I am a Muslim” message. More than five hundred European mosques are taking part in the initiative.

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Liberation of journalist signals cautious détente in German-Turkish relations

After one year and two days in Turkish prison – mostly spent in solitary confinement – journalist Deniz Yücel was set free by the Turkish authorities on February 16, 2018. The case of Yücel, a German and Turkish dual national working for the German Die Welt newspaper, had been a severe stumbling block in German-Turkish…

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German Turks ponder “existential” election results, gain 14 MPs

Germany’s federal elections of September 24th have propelled the far-right AfD party into parliament with 13 per cent of the popular vote, making it the third-largest group in the Bundestag. Given the AfD’s anti-immigrant and anti-Islam platform, German-Turkish political scientist Said Rezek observed that for many German Turks the AfD’s rise poses an “existential” challenge.1…

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