Germany: Shots fired near home of Turkish-Muslim cleric

BERLIN (AA) - Unknown suspects fired shots in front of a family house of a Turkish-Muslim cleric in Germany, the country’s largest Islamic organization announced on Sunday.

The Turkish-Muslim umbrella group DITIB said in a statement that its Secretary-General Abdurrahman Atasoy’s family house in the southwestern city of Heilbronn was targeted in a suspected shooting incident on Saturday night.

The unknown suspect or suspects fired a gun in front of the house after Atasoy arrived to visit his sister and brother, and then fled the scene. No one was injured.

Atasoy told Anadolu Agency that the local police did not take the incident seriously, and only arrived at the house following a phone call from the Interior Ministry.

They found five metal bullets on the ground, and launched an investigation.

DITIB said rising number of racist attacks targeting people with migration background, their religious and cultural institutions in recent weeks has been a growing concern for them.

“We are expecting from the police, judiciary and the politicians to take these threats more seriously,” the group said in a statement.

On Wednesday night, a German far-right extremist attacked two cafes and killed nine people with migration background in the western town of Hanau.

Four people with Turkish roots died in the racist terror attack. One Bosnian, one Bulgarian, and one Romanian lost their lives in the attack, as did a dual German-Afghan national.

Germany has witnessed growing racism and Islamophobia in recent years, fueled by the propaganda of neo-Nazi groups and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

A country of over 80 million people, Germany has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country’s nearly 4.7 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin.