MANNHEIM, Germany (Middle East Eye) -- When 25 Muslim children’s graves were vandalized by unknown assailants in Hanover on 22 November, Muslim Germans were left appalled that an attack of such nature had gone largely unnoticed in Germany.
The chairman of the Muslim organization Lower Saxony Schura, Recep Bilgen, condemned the attack at the Stocken city cemetery and demanded an enquiry by the police.
Later that afternoon, police in Hanover said they would open an investigation, though they cited the likelihood of “animal or natural causes”, as well as “personal fault”.
“Suspects are currently not listed in the process, likewise there is currently no concrete evidence of an Islamophobic connection,” they said.
But Khallad Swaid, president of the German Muslim organization Deutsche Muslimische Gemeinschaft said the attack was just another form of bigotry against Muslims.
“We feel deeply sorry for the families of the victims... The violation of graves, whether of children or adults, is one of the many disgusting forms of hatred against Islam and Muslims in our country,” Swaid told Middle East Eye.
Yet, Swaid believes the bigotry against Muslims that would leave a child’s grave vandalized is a result of Germany’s own hostile rhetoric.
“It is a result of a hostile language of, especially, the far-right movements that have made their way into the mainstream of our society and are given platforms in many of our media outlets to spread their hatred against Islam and Muslims,” he said.
This is not the first time that Muslim graves suffer vandalism in Germany.
Just earlier this year, in the city of Iserlohn, unidentified individuals knocked over 30 Muslim gravestones.
The Muslim communities in Iserlohn, which include community leaders, Islamic Council for the Federal Republic and Islamic Community Milli Gorus, said in a statement at the time that they were deeply disturbed by the attack and called on the police to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“The fact that even the resting place of Muslims is not respected shows how deeply rooted hatred is in some parts of our society. The attackers, who were not caught and held accountable, will continue their attacks,” the statement said.
Historical Roots
The phenomenon of targeted vandalism in Germany has historical roots, according to Anna Esther-Younes, a scholar on anti-Muslim racism in Europe.
“I am not aware of a decade in post World War II Germany where the vandalizing of Muslim, Jewish or Sinti and Roma graveyards in Germany didn’t happen,” Younes told MEE.
“In terms of the political climate, it is important to understand that the destruction of minority graveyards, along with the vandalization of memorial sites shows two things: on the one hand, society has become more aware of the danger of white supremacists, and on the other hand, it shows how far right we are by now,” Younes said.
Anti-Muslim hatred has been on the rise in Germany in recent years. Last year alone, 662 attacks on Muslims by predominantly right-wing extremists were recorded. Many of these attacks have included vandalizing Muslim institutions and mosques, but received little attention in German media.
The Hanover incident, Swaid said, had “unfortunately not been recognized, apart from a few local media outlets, by politicians or civil society at large. That is another level of the problem.”
“As long as racism is not identified and condemned as such, and the perpetrators are neither convicted nor receive the full force of the law, we won’t be able to tackle hatred of Islam and Muslims,” he added.
The total number of anti-Muslim crimes in the past year is likely much higher as it remains hard to prove what constitutes anti-Muslim crimes in Germany. Prior to 2017, there were no recorded statistics or markers for anti-Muslim racism. They were recorded under a general category of hate crimes.