Germany: Despite the threat, a group of experts on political Islamism will be dissolved

Berlin - The expert group on political Islamism in the Federal Ministry of the Interior is apparently to be dissolved. Members of the panel told the German Press Agency that representatives of the ministry's public security department had informed them that there was no interest in the continuation of the joint work of the group of experts. The council was set up in June 2021. The SPD-led ministry under Nancy Faeser initially gave no information on the reasons why the work of the committee should be stopped.

The work of the expert council was only intended for one year anyway, said Würzburg constitutional lawyer Kyrill-Alexander Schwarz of the Bild newspaper. Schwarz is a member of the council. Nevertheless, he had the impression that the desired dissolution was a "political decision". He does not think that Federal Interior Minister Faeser's focus on right-wing extremism is wrong, but other relevant phenomena should not therefore be neglected. Schwarz does not see the need to cut costs as a reason for the cessation of work. The members would not have received any money for participating in the mostly virtual meetings.

Criticism from opposition and experts
Criticism of the project came from the opposition CDU. The dissolution of the group of experts is "the temporary culmination of a policy of looking the other way and ignoring Islamism as a phenomenon that endangers democracy," said Christoph de Vries, member of the Bundestag and also a member of the interior committee. And CDU Federal Deputy Carsten Linnemann said that one can only hope "that this naivety will not fall on our feet one day".

Islamism expert Rebecca Schönenbach was also critical of the project. It is a good thing that the traffic light coalition has committed itself to fighting any form of discrimination, said Schönenbach, who chairs the Berlin association Women for Freedom , to the Bild newspaper. "Unfortunately, the Ministry of the Interior under Ms. Faeser seems to have overlooked the fact that Muslim women in particular are being discriminated against by Islamists."

Leaving women and young people to the Islamists
Now the Islamism Expert Group, which is supposed to analyze the strategies of Islamists and provide suggestions for countermeasures, is apparently to be set up. “In doing so, the federal government is denying protection to those who urgently need it,” Schönenbach continued. In addition to women, vulnerable groups such as young people would be "left to Islamists who will try to radicalize as many as possible".

In the discussion paper by the family and interior ministries on the announced "democracy promotion law", with which the coalition wants to lay down the guidelines for combating extremism and which is to be decided before the end of this year, Islamism does not appear as a threat. So far, only “Islamophobia and Muslimophobia” have been mentioned in this context. However, the government paper warns of “challenges posed by the corona pandemic”: “The spread of conspiracy ideologies, an increasingly radicalizing scene against public corona measures”, “new alliances between radicalized milieus” and “hate and hate speech on the Internet” keep increasing.

Source: Junge Freiheit