Citizens in the small Bavarian town of Kaufbeuren voted not to provide public land for a mosque. A local initiative was started by a retired detective and garnered enough votes to stop the negotiations.
In a local vote on July 22, the residents of Kaufbeuren, a small town in Bavaria, decided against providing public land for the construction of a mosque.
At issue was the question of whether the city would provide the local branch of the nationally active Turkish-Islamic religious association DITIB with a 5,000-square-meter (54,000-square-foot) plot in an industrial area.
At least 45 percent of approximately 34,000 eligible voters took part in the local referendum. A minimum turnout of 20 percent was necessary to make the vote valid. The city must now break off its negotiations with DITIB.
According to the direct democracy NGO “More Democracy,” there had only been one referendum in Germany before on building a mosque: in 2002, and then, a majority in Schlüchtern in Hesse voted in favor of construction.
The vote was held following an initiative organized by “Kaufbeurer Bürger gegen Neubau einer Ditib-Moschee” or “Kaufbeuren citizens against a new DITIB mosque.”
According to the group, DITIB is the mouthpiece of Turkish President Erdogan and spreads a political Islam that is incompatible with Germany’s Basic Law and the free democratic order.
Source: DW
