Turkish media is reporting that, following a police raid, a Turkish Consul General visited the mosque of a Turkish right-wing extremist association in Germany. According to the Hürriyet report:
13 November 2022: The Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Essen, Sezai Tolga Şimşir, visited the Mülheim Mosque Association and Cultural Center of the European Turkish Islamic Union (ATIB), which was raided by the German police last Friday due to a tip-off. Consul General Şimşir, who performed Friday prayers together with the citizens in the Masjid of the ATIB Mülheim an der Ruhr Mosque Association and Cultural Center, had a conversation with the citizens about the services of the Consulate General after the talks about the police raid. [Translated by DeepL]
Read the rest here.
According to the article, the raid was based on a false report to the police, and the police apologized for the raid.
The Union of Turkish-Islamic Cultural Associations in Europe (Turkish: Avrupa Türk-İslam Birliği; ATIB) is considered a right-wing extremist association by the German domestic intelligence agency. According to the agency’s 2021 report, ATIB has 1200 members and represents a more Islamically-oriented part of the far-right “Ülkücü” movement, also known as the Grey Wolves. German media has reported that mosques associated with ATIB employ imams sent by Turkey’s top religious authority, Diyanet. In September 2022, GIOR reported on ATIB’s General Secretary being elected as the Deputy Chairwoman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, the government’s leading dialog partner for societal issues about Islam and the local Muslim community.
PREVIOUS POST