UPDATE - Turkey condemns police raid on Berlin mosque

UPDATES WITH NEW REMARKS; CHANGES DECK

By Dilan Pamuk and Burak Bir

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Thursday condemned a police raid on a mosque in Berlin, Germany.

"I strongly condemn the immoderate police raid on the Berlin Mevlana Mosque during the fajr prayer time," Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Twitter.

The Berlin prosecutor's office and the police should apologize to the Muslim community for this attitude, he added.

Criticizing the "ugly act", Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the raid was not against a particular group, it was against the whole Muslim community.

"Such an ugly act in the capital of a country that tries to lecture others on freedom of expression and belief is also thought-provoking," read the Foreign Ministry statement.

"This raid was not only against the community in the Mevlana mosque; it was also an act against all the Muslim community, and it is inexplicable," it added.

It urged the German authorities to acknowledge that the Muslim community, whose population in Germany is almost five million, is an integral part of Germany and stop "excluding and marginalizing them."

Ali Erbas, the head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate, also condemned the police raid, saying it was an act based on hatred and that Islamophobia was growing. in Europe.

"No excuse could justify this disrespectful and discriminatory attitude towards Muslims," he said in a Twitter post.

The police raided Mevlana Mosque on Wednesday over a financial investigation, when the community gathered for morning prayers.

Some 150 police walked inside the mosque in their boots, which the ministry called “inexcusable”.