1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineIsrael-Hamas warIndia elections

Muslim integration worries Berlin

March 1, 2012

A study on Muslim integration in Germany has found nearly one in four Muslims without German citizenship holds hostile views toward the West and are reluctant to integrate.

https://p.dw.com/p/14CKX
Two women, one in headscarf, walk along street
Image: dapd

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said Thursday that anyone who opposes freedom and democracy in Germany would have "no future here," reacting to a report that found nearly a quarter of non-German Muslims hold anti-Western views and have no interest in integration.

"Germany pays attention to the cultural background and identity of its immigrants," he said in the Thursday edition of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper. "But we do not accept the import of authoritarian, anti-democratic and religiously extremist views."

A report from the Interior Ministry, made public late on Wednesday, found that 24 percent of non-German Muslims between 14 and 32 years of age were "strictly religious with strong animosity toward the West, a tendency to accept violence and no tendency toward integration." The percentage dropped to 15 among Muslims who were German nationals.

More than three quarters of German Muslims interviewed for the study said they supported integration into the majority culture, where as just over half of non-German Muslims agreed. The study cited a "group-oriented discrimination" against foreigners as possible reason for the results.

Bundesinnenminister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) beantwortet am Mittwoch (08.02.2012) vor der Bundespressekonferenz in Berlin Fragen von Journalisten. Der Politiker stellt die "Bund-Länder-Kommission Rechtsterrorismus" zur Aufarbeitung der Neonazi-Morde vor, die zuvor im Bundeskabinett beschlossen wurde. Foto: Wolfgang Kumm dpa/lbn +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++
Friedrich said immigrants must integrate to have a future in GermanyImage: picture-alliance/dpa

The statistics were based on phone interviews with 700 German and non-German Muslims conducted between February 2009 and June 2011.

The study was sharply criticized by members of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) as wasting public funds for useless research.

"I have to wonder why the Interior Ministry is again using taxpayer money to finance a study that produces headlines but no insight," FDP integration policy expert Serkan Tören told the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. He said violence among youth was attributable to "social issues, not religious," and that religious identity is often just "an empty shell" for young Muslims that doesn't necessarily influence their conduct.

acb/dfm (AFP, epd)