Over 800 mosques attacked in Germany since 2014: Rights group

BERLIN (AA) – More than 800 mosques in Germany have been the targets of threats and attacks since 2014, but in most of the cases, crimes were not properly investigated, according to Brandeilig, an initiative of rights group FAIR International.

The group, which has founded Germany’s first reporting center for attacks on mosques, recorded nearly 840 incidents of attacks, vandalism and threats between 2014 and 2022.

A detailed analysis of the crimes in 2018 revealed that perpetrators remained unidentified in most of the attacks, fueling further attacks against Muslim worship sites by neo-Nazis or left-wing extremists.

“In general, the clearance rate for mosque attacks can be considered very low,” the group said in a recent report.

Among the 120 attacks recorded against mosques in 2018, only in nine cases perpetrators could be identified.

“This rate is a cause for concern,” Brandeilig’s experts stressed, pointing out that in at least 20 cases, which included arson attacks, suspects intended to cause death or great bodily harm.

“In general, the police officers arrived on the scene very quickly and immediately started the investigation. Nevertheless, almost none of the incidents could be solved until today,” the experts said.

Left-wing extremists and followers of the YPG/PKK terror group were behind several attacks targeting mosques, while majority of them were committed by right-wing extremists or neo-Nazi groups, according to the report.

Germany, a country of over 83 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country’s nearly 5.3 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin.