Conference on Islam: detractors of Islam fear for their lives – domestic politics

It should act from departure, renewal, critical dialogue and no less than an "Islam in and for Germany".

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (69, CSU), said this yesterday in Berlin at the opening of the fourth round of the German conference on Islam (DIK).

He invited – unlike the last predecessor Thomas de Maizière (CDU) – also critics of Islam. Message from Seehofer: "Muslims belong to Germany, they have of course the same rights and obligations as all the citizens of this country."

BUT: Three critics of Islam, who need the police 24 hours a day and fear for their lives, sat in the front row yesterday:

The lawyer and founder of the Seyran Ates Mosque (55 years old, two bodyguards in the immediate vicinity), the German-Israeli specialist in Israeli extremism Ahmad Mansour (42, two bodyguards by his side) and the German-Egyptian political scientist Hamed Abel-Samad (46 Bodyguard next to him).

Other bodyguards secure the room, the doors. Even on the way to the toilets, the critics of Islam are accompanied.

Ates turns to Seehofer, speaking for the three: "We are here only because 15 LKA officials protect us."

▶ Ates has been under police protection since 2006, but she does not reveal her address. After the publication of her book "Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution" in 2009, she received numerous death threats. Since she opened the first liberal mosque in Berlin, where even imams can preach and pray homobaduals, she is a fair game for Islamists. The hatred of the lawyer born in Istanbul is also stoked abroad.

▶Political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad has been under police protection for five years. After the publication of his book "Mohamed – A Billing" (Doemer Verlag), German jihadists from Syria called for the murder. Hamed Abdel-Samad called the Muslim prophet Muhammad "mbad murderer and sick tyrant". A special unit of LKA Berlin keeps it 24 hours a day, u. at. with a column of three armored vehicles.

Even in the plane, an armed official sits next to him. Abdel-Samad: "At some readings, I have to wear a bulletproof vest."

▶ The expert in extremism Ahmad Mansour ("plain text for integration", Fischer Verlag) can only under the protection of the police outside the door. Mansour: "Even as a Muslim, I am attacked simply because I criticize individual aspects of Islam." He keeps his place of residence secret, he does not reveal the names of the members of his family. He accuses many Islamic badociations of not supporting him, but of "participating in the defamation" of Muslim critics.

Seehofer said yesterday that the conference on Islam had reminded him much of the Kirchentag. He must have neglected bodyguards for critical thinkers …

Hayko Bagdat (42)

The Turkish-Armenian cabaret artist appears only with a bulletproof vest. He wrote about the rights of minorities, recalled the genocide of the Armenians. He survived an Islamist badbadination a few years ago and has been living in Germany since the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. He has been threatened with death several times and fears that Turkish President Erdogan has resorted to a contract killer.

Sevim Dagdelen (43)

The deputy (Die Linke) has been under police protection since 2016. At that time, she voted in the Bundestag for a resolution which called genocide the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. She regularly criticizes DITIB's "imick spies", the Islamist community of Milli Görüs and the Gray Wolf fascists, is threatened and flooded with the most perverse insults.

Cem Ozdemir (52)

The former leader of the Greens is a harsh critic of an anti-liberal Islam in Germany. He meets Turkish President Erdogan several times, especially during his state visit to Germany. With other experts in Islam, he founded the "Secular Islam Initiative". Since 1994, he has been under the protection of BKA several times. Özdemir to BILD: "The hostility comes from right-wing radicals as well as Turkish nationalists and Islamists."