Crimes targeting Muslims in Germany have significantly increased in 2024, findings at Bundestag, the federal parliament, have revealed.
A total of 1,554 criminal acts against Muslims were recorded last year, according to a response to an inquiry submitted by the socialist Left Party.
The parliamentary response noted that the number of criminal acts against Muslims was 572 in 2022 and 1,536 in 2023.
Attacks against Sinti and Romani people in Germany too jumped from 171 in 2023 to 176 in 2024.
“These figures are only the tip of the iceberg. The number of crimes that went unregistered is estimated to be much higher,” the response said.
Muslims in Germany report Islamophobic attacks have surged when the new round of the Palestine-Israel conflict began in October 2023.
CLAIM, a network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) monitoring Islamophobia, reported in June 2024 that 1,926 anti-Muslim incidents were registered in Germany in 2023. The incidents ranged from attempted arson on a mosque in Bochum that had been marked with a swastika to the door of a Muslim family in Saxony shot at by a right-wing extremist neighbor, and a woman pushed onto train tracks in Berlin after being asked if she belonged to Hamas.
Yet authorities are paying insufficient attention to this phenomenon and even denying its existence, as mainstream parties take over policies of far-right, anti-Islam parties that have surged in popularity, Rima Hanano told a Berlin news conference to present the report.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which states in its program that Islam does not belong to Germany, has jumped to second place in polls over the past two years, sparking tougher talk on migration.
Migration policy has become a dominant issue in the political campaign ahead of Germany's election on Feb. 23.
Last week, the center-right opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc’s controversial proposals to tighten migration policy passed at parliament with the backing of AfD lawmakers.
In a country that is particularly sensitive about anti-Semitism due to its responsibility for the Holocaust, German authorities have been more vocal in denouncing that problem than anti-Muslim incidents.
Mosques in Germany too reported an increase in vandalism, harassment and threats throughout 2023, particularly letters and packages signed with the neo-Nazi alias "NSU 2.0."
