BONNE,
May 27 (IslamOnline.net) - The Rasterfahndung investigation campaign
targeting Muslim minority in Germany has failed so far to find any hard
evidence to bring even one single Muslim to justice on terrorism
charges, a leading German magazine reported Monday, May 26.
Germany’s
anti-crime police launched a sweeping campaign targeting some 95,271 of
the Muslim community in the country - estimated at four million people -
but fell short of providing solid evidence on terror charges against any
of them, Der Spiegel said.
The
campaign, which further targeted the Muslims bank accounts, did not find
any link with “terrorist organizations.”
However,
it unjustifiably placed a freeze on deposits of some five thousand euros
belonging to some individuals.
The
interior ministers of German states, speaking to the weekly, said that
they were not able to deport what they called suspected Muslim
extremists despite the tightened anti-terror laws in the country.
The
magazine said that the Rasterfahndung, launched in the aftermath of the
9-11 attacks on the United States, swallowed huge sums of money and
affected negatively the civil liberties in Germany.
German
authorities also fired some 86 Muslims from their sensitive jobs in
nuclear stations and airports under the pretext of suspected
‘extremist-leaning thinking.’
Deportation
German
Interior Minister Otto Schily, for his part, asked the interior
ministers of the 16 German states to deport ‘Muslim extremists’ from
Germany, hitting out at national security officials for not effectively
using anti-terror laws strictly.
In
statements to the Der Spiegel Monday, Schily refuted
reports that a number of anti-war terror drafted by his ministry and
ratified by the German parliament (Bundestag) in November 2001 were
ineffective.
Privacy
Violation
Germany’s
annual report on civil liberties, released last week and drawn up by
seven human rights and legal organizations, warned of violating the
privacy of the German society.
It
cited some privacy violations by the German authorities in the name of
stepping up security measures.
Security
measures have been expanded to include monitoring citizens with video
cameras installed in the streets, public squares, banks, gas stations,
public transport and parks, charged Juergen Kuehling, a former judge at
Germany’s Supreme Constitutional Court, who brought the report to
light.
It
seems as if the German society, due to the extraordinary measures
mentioned in the report, was a wartime society and not a civilized
Western society, he stressed.
The
former judge in German’s top legal body also regretted that the German
people were indifferent towards the violations of their rights.
Those
who are not worried about such measures because they have nothing to
hide, do not know much about the random round-the-clock telephone
tapping, Kuehling said.
Hijab
The
report further said the rigid security measures denied scores of Muslim
women wearing hijab job opportunities, which brazenly
violates the principle of religious freedom enshrined in the German
constitution.
It
also expected that the Supreme Constitutional Court would reach a final
decision regarding the case of veiled Muslim female teachers working in
state schools by June.
The
civil liberties report underlined that this case in particular had
affected the neutrality of the state in dealing with its citizens.
