Germany's Upstart AfD Party Embraces New Anti-Islam Policy

At the AfD conference in Germany on Saturday, delegates made it clear that they don’t accept Islam by proposing a ban on the burqa and minarets, which are the towers of mosque where Muslims are called to prayer.

Chaos ensued when 2,000+ left-wing demonstrators crashed the conference. 500 were detained with 5 police officers injured trying to halt the disorder between the opposing parties.  

The following day, AfD sponsored an election manifesto that states that Islam doesn’t deserve the country’s constitutional rights that protect religion and that both minarets and the burqa should be banned.

This is just another attempt to make the Muslim migrants feel unwelcome.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) was founded three years ago. It was the first anti-euro party to win seats in the German regional parliament. Once Ms. Petry took over as the party leader, it moved to the right and the main focus changed to put a stop to the mass immigration. Since then, the group’s animosity towards Muslims have grown as more refugees enter the country.

Currently, Germany is the home of almost 4 million Muslims. This is about 5% of the population. Many more enter the country daily seeking asylum from the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

As a whole, German citizens are frustrated with Merkel’s open door policy. The crime rates and the disarray from the influx of these refugees has gotten out of hand.

The population’s disapproval of Merkel’s open door refugee policy has caused the CDU to drop in the elections. More people out of desperation are gravitating to support AfD.

According to recent polls, the group’s support is up by 14%. This offers some major opposition to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU.) Merkel has consistently stated that Islam belongs in Germany and have ruled out participating in any coalition with the AfD.  

Evidently, the AfD party strongly disagrees. “Islam is foreign to us and for that reason it cannot invoke the principle of religious freedom to the same degree as Christianity,” said Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an AfD lawmaker of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The anti-euro party and its supporters are now rejecting freedom of religion outlined in the German constitution. As the party builds momentum, not only does the CDU have more in opposition, but leaving the EU becomes more of a possibility.