Berlin - Muslim leaders in Germany and government officials
hope to resume consultations on sensitive issues such as education
after this year's general election, German Interior Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble said Thursday.
'We all agreed. This approach has to continue in the years to
come,' he said in Berlin of the final meeting in three years of
Germany's first consultations with its Muslim minority.
The conference series had increased Germans' willingness to accept
pluralism.
This week, data compiled for the conference revealed for the first
time that 5 per cent of Germany's population is Muslim, more than was
previously thought, and highlighted Muslim discontent about public
schools.
Education has been a focus of the meetings, with Muslim parents
complaining that public schools fail to prepare their children for
decent jobs and mostly do not offer religion classes like those
offered to Christians.
Chancellor Angela Merkel met at her office with the Muslim
community leaders before the three-hour final conference began, and
said, 'We need your voices to understand the entire range of Islam in
Germany.'
She said heated debate at the conference on gaining permits to
build mosques had led to proposals to smooth the process and
pinpointed the officials to approach.
Most of the work since 2006 of the Islam Conference, including
information gathering, has been done by committees and officials
appointed by Schaeuble.
The conference was called for the lifetime of the Merkel
government only. Its final session on Thursday ran well over time,
with a final news conference delayed.
Divisions remain within the Muslim community, with liberal Muslims
at the talks quick to affirm their support for the German system,
whereas fundamentalists perceived continued hostility towards them
from the German state.
A newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said one mosque group, the
Council of Islam, representing conservative groups, refused to sign a
call for full public disclosure of funding sources, calling it
'discriminatory.'
'We reject the declaration in this form because it is infused with
suspicion in general towards Muslims,' the Council of Islam chairman,
Ali Kizilkaya, told the newspaper.
Fundamentalist Islamic groups in Germany have been accused by
officials of taking secret funding from abroad.
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