The parties' answers
The growing influence of Islamic associations and organisations that seek to give religion a political dimension, or whose values are incompatible with the Grundgesetz (Germany’s Basic Law), is a source of concern not only to Jewish Germans.
Here the state should apply strict criteria to cooperation and funding. Organisations, associations and mosques that do not stand behind democracy and human rights without ifs or buts should be banned, closed and, where appropriate, prosecuted. State treaties may be concluded only under strict conditions. Financial influence and the exercise of authority by foreign governments over German organisations and groups of people must be strictly prevented.
The CDU stands for equal freedom of religion and religious practice under the Grundgesetz. Many people with a history of immigration bring different religions with them, and sometimes no faith at all. We welcome the religious diversity in Germany that has arisen through immigration to our country. This applies to religions with a long tradition here and to those with a short one. Alongside Christianity and the Orthodox and Oriental churches belonging to it, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, there are numerous denominations and religious groupings in Germany.
As the SPD, we want to enforce a zero-tolerance policy towards hate preachers and Islamists. A large proportion of fundamentalist Islamists in Germany become radicalised here, in our own country. We will close extremist Islamist mosques and cut off their funding.
We will work together with the many non-radical mosque congregations and Islamic associations. We are strengthening the good local advisory and prevention structures and ensuring at an early stage that young people in our country do not become radicalised. We will counter hate propaganda online with alternative messages and, as far as possible, prosecute it.
Muslims and Islam are part of our country. We support the organisational development of Muslim congregations and organisations, provided they are founded in Germany under German law and respect the free democratic basic order. If they meet these requirements, the opportunities offered by our well-established constitutional law on religion are open to them as well.
The image of Muslims in Germany is shaped above all by forces that cannot claim to represent “the Muslims”. That is true of Salafist preachers and their followers as well as of some of the larger mosque associations. Sadly, for decades there was no sense of any need even to take note of the rising number of Muslims arriving through immigration and to work with them towards a cooperative relationship between the state and religious communities. To give one example: had the training of religious teachers and imams been established considerably earlier, there would have been no need for them to be sent from other countries. This omission must now be corrected at great effort. In this process, DIE LINKE does not consider it helpful to place all Muslims under blanket suspicion of religious extremism or even terrorism. That the state must nevertheless intervene where violence and law-breaking are incited under the cloak of religion goes without saying.
A diverse, open society is built on the fundamental rights of the Grundgesetz. They hold our society together in its diversity and secure peaceful coexistence. Part of this is that people can live self-determined lives regardless of their origin, culture and world view, and that they respect one another. This applies both to those who have newly arrived and to those who have lived here for a long time. For it is part of plurality and democracy that they face criticism and public debate, that they do not treat their own views as absolute and that they therefore do not act in a fundamentalist way. However important it may be to the individual, and whichever religious confession is at issue: no holy book stands above the Grundgesetz. We firmly oppose religious extremism and fanaticism.
Freedom of religion is a precious good. It forbids the banning of religious convictions and expressions merely because they do not accord with basic democratic views. Violent forms of Islamism must of course be combated with every means available under the rule of law. Where ideologies contradict our understanding of respectful coexistence for all people, we seek the socio-political argument in favour of our values of freedom and self-determination. Beyond that, we believe that all other Muslims living in Germany who adhere to a non-extremist interpretation of “the” Islam can be valuable partners in combating (violent) Islamism.
The AfD is probably the only party to have spoken out with complete clarity against political Islam in Germany. We reject the statement by the Chancellor and the Federal Minister of Finance that “Islam” belongs to Germany: Islam does not belong to Germany. Unlike other religions, among them Judaism and Christianity, Islam has not yet undergone an internal enlightenment. On the contrary, anyone who examines Islam in a historically critical way runs the risk of being made the target of a fatwa. As surveys show, a considerable proportion of the Muslims living in Europe place their religiously grounded laws above the legal order of the state. In particular the unequal treatment of women and also of “unbelievers”, the laws of Sharia, individual suras, parts of “jihad” and the Ummah as a worldwide community for enforcing this Islam cannot and must not be allowed to take effect in a democratic state under the rule of law. For details we refer to the AfD’s basic programme (Chapter 7.6) and its Bundestag election programme (Chapter 6).
For us Free Democrats, the decisive point in any practice of religion is that it is guided by the Grundgesetz.
Where the Grundgesetz, as the objective order of values of our society, is disregarded and laws are broken, tolerance ends. There must be no indulgence towards religious or ideological fundamentalism. In this context we also reject influence from abroad through the funding of religious associations and institutions, as exercised for example by Turkey and Saudi Arabia in relation to certain mosque congregations.
We call for effective measures against radical Salafism. In doing so we also rely on cooperation with all those Muslims and their associations who wish to combat intolerance, violence and religious extremism. Our aim is a comprehensive approach that combines repression and prevention.