Germany: Turkish community hit by several attacks

A center in the Turkish community has been targeted by arson in Germany, in addition to a series of attacks since Friday across the country where several pro-Kurdish demonstrations also took place.

Unknown people set fire to a cultural center in Ahlen, North Rhine-Westphalia, police said, which does not exclude a political motivation, quoted by the German agency Dpa.

In three days, two mosques in Berlin and southern Germany, the premises of a German-Turkish association in the west and a vegetable shop run by a Turk in the north of the country have thus made the object of fire. Another mosque saw its windows broken.

These attacks did not hurt anyone. Three people suspected of sending Molotov cocktails on the building of the German-Turkish association have been arrested for the time being.

After the attack on a mosque in Molotov on Saturday, the Turkish community in Germany condemned an “inhuman crime” and “an act of terrorism that not only directly threatens human beings but also undermines the foundations of our community. “.

Several investigations have been opened for “attempted murder” by the police. The latter considers possible racist, Islamophobic, but also political motives with the Turkish offensive against Kurds in the north-west of Syria in the background, the Tagesspiegel reports.

A pro-Kurdish website has posted videos of mosque attacks claiming that they were perpetrated by young Kurds, but this has not been confirmed.

The site calls however “the young people to rise up and turn every place into a zone of resistance” to save Afrine. “No matter who is behind these attacks, be they circles close to the PKK or the Turkish intelligence service MIT, they are unjustifiable,” said Monday the president of the Kurdish community of Germany Ali Ertan Toprak in a statement .

Several pro-Kurdish demonstrations protesting against the intervention of the Turkish army in the Syrian region of Afrine against the Kurdish militia of the YPG since January 20 took place this weekend in Germany but also in England.

Several people were injured Sunday at the Dusseldorf airport during clashes between pro-Kurdish demonstrators, Turks and police.

In England, pro-Kurdish demonstrations led to the closure of Piccadilly stations in Manchester and King’s Cross in London.

On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the current operation in the Afrine region would be extended towards the Iraqi border and in particular the symbolic Kurdish town of Kobane.