Unidentified assailants hurled a Molotov cocktail at a mosque in a town just south of Heidelberg early Thursday, raising fears that recent ethnic violence in Holland could spill over the border to Germany.
The attack happened shortly after midnight when an individual or group threw a bottle filled with flammable liquid against the entrance of the mosque. A glass panel was broken and the wooden door caught fire before the wife of the imam, who lives in the mosque with her husband, was able to extinguish the fire. The inside of the mosque did not catch fire. Damages are estimated at EUR10,000 ($13,000).
Investigators said there was no proof that the attack in Sinsheim, a town with a population of 35,000, was connected to attacks against mosques in the Netherlands that erupted after the slaying on Nov. 2 of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. His death is linked to a film he made that criticized the treatment of women in Islam. The main suspect in this case is a Muslim.
Since van Gogh's murder, the Netherlands has had to come to grips with hidden tension between the Dutch and Muslim communities. The incident has prompted a chain of revenge attacks on mosques, religious schools and churches in the last two weeks.
State investigators in Baden-Württemberg said they have been closely watching developments in the Netherlands, but that there was no evidence of similar ethnic tensions in the region.
“We immediately had our eyes on the local right-wing extremist scene, but our initial investigations have not resulted in any clues about the motive of the attack,“ said Erwin Hetger, head of the state police. He added that comparisons to the event in Holland are purely speculative and investigators are looking at all possible motives.
The incident was a painful reminder of a spate of violence against Muslims in Germany in the early 1990s, which resulted in multiple deaths.
The violence culminated in May 1993, when five members of a Turkish family were killed by an arsonist attack in Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Members of the organization that runs the mosque expressed surprise at the attack. “We never expected something like this to happen,“ a top official of the group said. Some 380 Muslims belong to the organization, he added. No previous threats were reported.
Baden-Württemberg estimates there are just under 400,000 practicing Muslims and around 300 to 400 mosques in the entire state. The large majority are Turkish.
Hetger said investigators are taking the attack very seriously but that the police do not have the resources to put police supervision in front of every mosque. But, he added, if investigations reveal sufficient evidence that tightened security is necessary, officials would act. “The Muslims in Baden-Württemberg have to be able to feel safe,“ Hetger said.
Just this weekend, members of the ruling and opposition parties warned that violence like that in Holland is also a threat in Germany. Bavarian Interior Minister Günter Beckstein of the Christian Social Union told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that ghettos and parallel cultures in the country's big cities hide potential conflicts.
Dieter Wiefelspütz, spokesman for interior affairs for the Social Democrats, said “there's a Holland everywhere.“ He added: “This could also happen here. No one should get too cozy with security.“ Wiefelspütz also called on Muslim communities to clearly distance themselves from violence and religious extremism.
Volker Beck of the Greens warned against “scaremongering“ and said the most important thing is to solve ongoing integration problems.
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