Anti-Islam protests

The leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) Sigmar Gabriel began a tour of mosques in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia on Friday. His aim was to speak out against a series of anti-Islam demonstrations planned by the far-right party Pro-NRW.

"We shouldn't overestimate them," Gabriel told an audience at the Merkez mosque in Gelsenkirchen. "But we shouldn't underestimate them either."

Pro-NRW had earlier announced plans for a Saturday conference to discuss a minaret ban, and had also scheduled a demonstration march for Sunday at the biggest mosque in Germany, located in Duisburg-Marxloh.

Germany's leading far-right political party, the National Democratic Party (NPD), is also expected to hold a weekend rally in Duisburg.

No stranger to controversy

Pro-NRW and a local off-shoot known as Pro-Koeln made headlines two years ago with its protest against a proposed project to build Germany's largest mosque in Cologne. They said it would bring a "foreign" touch to Cologne's skyline, which is dominated by the city's 11th century cathedral.

The protesters were met by counter-protestors from left-wing groups, church groups, trade unions and the Green party, resulting in tight police security measures.

Olaf Sundermeyer, author of the book "In the NPD" and an expert on right-wing movements, told Deutsche Welle that Pro-NRW is a relatively new, western German right-wing party, similar in nature to the British National Party or the Front National in France.

"Their main supporters are middle-class people who are worried about Christian values in Germany," said Sundermeyer. "People right of the Christian Democratic Union but not quite radical enough to vote for a neo-Nazi party."

A link on Pro-NRW's website takes users to another site called "Cities against Islamization," which claims that Islam is "more a social order than a religion," and is "at odds with Western European values."

Sundermeyer added that although Pro-NRW advertizes itself as a civil movement, many of its leading members have neo-Nazi backgrounds.

A place in society?

After a large Pro-NRW/Pro-Koeln rally in September 2008, a foreign affairs spokesperson for the federal government criticized the movement as a masquerade.

"In our country there is no place for radical right-wing groups who discriminate against minorities under the guise of a citizens' movement," said the spokesperson.

But this begs the question: if the government says there is no place in Germany for such groups, why doesn't the government simply ban them?

"If you ban them you are putting yourself at their level," says Sundermeyer. "I would let them demonstrate, as long as they don't do anything illegal, because that's democracy."

Gabriel will be relying on the democratic process in his campaign against Pro-NRW. During his tour, he urged citizens in the Ruhr region to vote against the right-wing party in the upcoming state election on May 9.

"The right only have a chance if voter turnout is low," said Gabriel.

Author: Matthew Kang
Editor: Ben Knight