News - World: A new report has highlighted a rise in Islamophobic acts that had gone largely unnoticed in Germany, after last month’s vandalization of Muslim children’s graves in the country’s north.

On November 22, unknown assailants vandalized 25 Muslim children’s graves in Hanover, in a move that drew condemnation from the chairman of the Muslim organization Lower Saxony Schura, Recep Bilgen, who had also called for a probe by the police. Back then, police said they would open an investigation, though they cited the likelihood of “animal or natural causes,” as well as “personal fault.”

“Suspects are currently not listed in the process. Likewise, there is currently no concrete evidence of an Islamophobic connection,” they said.

But the Middle East Eye said in a report on Sunday that the incident is seen as another form of bigotry against Muslims.

“We feel deeply sorry for the families of the victims... The violation of graves, whether of children or adults, is one of the many disgusting forms of hatred against Islam and Muslims in our country,” Khallad Swaid, president of the German Muslim organization Deutsche Muslimische Gemeinschaft, told the Middle East Eye.

Yet, Swaid attributed the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry to German figures’ hostile rhetoric.

“It is a result of a hostile language of, especially, [the] far-right movements that have made their way into the mainstream of our society and [are] given platforms in many of our media outlets to spread their hatred against Islam and Muslims,” he said.

Noting that the Hanover incident had not been recognized by politicians or civil society at large, Swaid said “That is another level of the problem.”

“As long as racism is not identified and condemned as such, and the perpetrators are neither convicted nor receive the full force of the law, we won’t be able to tackle hatred of Islam and Muslims,” he added.

The vandalization of Hanover graves was not the first time Muslim graves in Germany are being targeted.

Earlier this year, unidentified attackers knocked over 30 Muslim gravestones in the city of Iserlohn.

Anna Esther-Younes, a scholar on anti-Muslim racism in Europe, noted that the phenomenon of targeted vandalism in Germany has historical roots.

“I am not aware of a decade in post-World War II Germany where the vandalizing of Muslim, Jewish or Sinti and Roma graveyards in Germany didn’t happen,” Younes told MEE.

“In terms of the political climate, it is important to understand that the destruction of minority graveyards, along with the vandalization of memorial sites shows two things: on the one hand, society has become more aware of the danger of white supremacists, and on the other hand, it shows how far right we are by now.”

The MEE reported that anti-Muslim hatred has been on the rise in Germany in recent years, adding that 662 attacks on Muslims by predominantly right-wing extremists were recorded last year alone. They, however, received little attention in the German media.

The report also said that the total number of anti-Muslim crimes in the past year is likely much higher amid a lack of markers for such crimes.

A recent study conducted by the Expert Council on Integration and Migration (SVR) also found that anti-Muslim attitudes are widespread in Germany.

“Negative attitudes towards Islam are widespread in all groups examined – people with and without a migration background,” the SVR said.

Source: Press TV