Newsweek :
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed calls from high-ranking members of her own party to introduce a so-called “Islam law,” regulating the religious practices of Muslims in the country.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have seen support for their party decline over the chancellor’s refugee policy which saw close to a million, mostly Muslim, refugees register in the country since the start of the crisis in 2015.
In the past week, two members of the CDU, deputy head Julia Klöckner and executive committee member Jens Spahn, called for specific legislation regulating the behavior of Muslims. The “Islam law” would include a mosque registry and require imams to take a language test and to give sermons in German.
Discussing mosques, Spahn said that authorities “did not know how many mosques there are in Germany, where they are or who finances them.”
But Monday, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert distanced the German leader from the policy.
“Such a law is not now an issue for government business,” he told reporters, according to Deutsche Welle. Ensuring religious freedom in Germany was “one of the central freedoms promised by our constitution,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed calls from high-ranking members of her own party to introduce a so-called “Islam law,” regulating the religious practices of Muslims in the country.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have seen support for their party decline over the chancellor’s refugee policy which saw close to a million, mostly Muslim, refugees register in the country since the start of the crisis in 2015.
In the past week, two members of the CDU, deputy head Julia Klöckner and executive committee member Jens Spahn, called for specific legislation regulating the behavior of Muslims. The “Islam law” would include a mosque registry and require imams to take a language test and to give sermons in German.
Discussing mosques, Spahn said that authorities “did not know how many mosques there are in Germany, where they are or who finances them.”
But Monday, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert distanced the German leader from the policy.
“Such a law is not now an issue for government business,” he told reporters, according to Deutsche Welle. Ensuring religious freedom in Germany was “one of the central freedoms promised by our constitution,” he said.
