German party threatens to ban minarets and burqa

BERLIN: The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) threatened on Sunday to press for bans on minarets and burqas at its party congress in two weeks’ time.
The AfD punished Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats in three regional elections last month.
“We are in favor of a ban on minarets, on muezzins and a ban on full veils,” added Storch, who is a member of the European Parliament.
Merkel’s conservatives have also called for an effective ban on the burqa, saying the full body covering worn by Muslim women should not be worn in public.
The AfD’s rise, which has coincided with strong gains by other European anti-immigrant parties including the National Front in France, has punctured the centrist consensus around which the mainstream parties have formed alliances in Germany.
Last month, the party grabbed 24 percent of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, surpassing even the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel’s coalition partner in Berlin. The AfD, founded in 2013, also performed strongly in two other states.
The party’s rise has been controversial. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, has said Germany’s far-right, led by the AfD party, is using language similar to that of Hitler’s Nazis.
Such accusations have not swayed the party from its anti-immigration course.