For the mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker (elected without a label but supported by the Greens and the Conservatives), it is a sign “tolerance“,”a mark of respect“for Islam which, she says,”part of german society“.
His city, which widely welcomed Turkish immigration in the early 1960s, now has 120,000 Muslims, 12% of the population. In the name of religious freedom and the pluralism of religions, one cannot, according to her, deprive them of the expression of their religion.
Viel Diskussion wg des Modellprojekts #Muezzin-Ruf. Köln ist die Stadt der (religiösen) Freiheit & Vielfalt. Wer am Hbf ankommt, wird vom Dom begrüßt und von Kirchengeläut begleitet. Viele KölnerInnen sind Muslime. Den Muezzin-Ruf zu erlauben ist für mich ein Zeichen des Respekts
– Henriette Reker (@HenrietteReker) October 9, 2021
“Cologne is the city of (religious) freedom and diversity. Anyone arriving at the main station is greeted by the cathedral and accompanied by the church bells. Many Cologne residents are Muslims. Allowing the muezzin’s call is a sign of respect for me“she wrote in a tweet on October 9th.
The pilot project is set up for two years. It will be very supervised and without haste: the muezzins will only be able to call to prayer on Fridays between noon and 3 p.m. No more than five minutes. The volume will be restricted (roughly, not louder than church bells), the entire district must be informed well in advance and above all each mosque must appoint a mediator to liaise with the inhabitants and settle any disputes.
A review will be made within two years; by then there will undoubtedly be some adjustments, as in the thirty or so municipalities that already allow calls to prayer: Dortmund, Bremen or Dürren, where it has even been three times a day since 1984.
In Cologne, the municipality’s proposal is already creating tensions. Of course, not all the inhabitants concerned are opposed to it. Certain press titles such as the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel have also given their support to the initiative.
# Köln erlaubt den #Muezzin -Gebetsruf. Das Recht auf #Religionsfreiheit steht auch #Muslim zu. Ob kirchliches Glockengeläut oder islamischer #Gebetsruf : „Wir sind hier“, heißt die Botschaft der Gläubigen. Bloß #Berlin zögert noch. @MalteLehming https://t.co/Dy2pjAEOim
– Tagesspiegel (@Tagesspiegel) October 11, 2021
“The right to #religious freedom also applies to #Muslims. Whether it is church bells or calls to Islamic prayer, “We are here” is the message of the faithful. Only #Berlin still hesitates“. But the AfD, the far-right party, hastened to recover the controversy. A citizens’ demonstration took place in Cologne on Friday, October 15. And according to a survey by the Insa institute, six Germans in ten say they are opposed to the initiative.
What bothers them is the increasingly important place in the country of an opaque religious organization, closely linked to the Turkish president: the Union of Turkish-Islamist Affairs. (Ditib), which financed in Cologne one of the largest mosques in Europe, with two minarets 55 meters high and which manages nine hundred places of worship in Germany with imams from Turkey. His detractors accuse him of being above all an instrument of proselytism piloted by Ankara and of spying on opponents of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On the first Friday that mosques in Cologne are allowed to broadcast the call to prayer, dozens took to the streets to oppose the move. pic.twitter.com/CABLlW7v9v
– DW News (@dwnews) October 15, 2021
During the pandemic, it was this organization that asked, in municipalities near Cologne, “spiritual compensations“with a call to prayer on Friday. The initiative was not sustained.
Since the announcement ofHenriette Reker, mosques in any case do not rush to wipe the plasters. None to date has submitted an application for authorization to the town hall. The song of the muezzin in the peaceful streets of Ehrenfeld district, it will not be for now.