Muslims torment Christians in refugee shelters

Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne has drawn attention to the fact that Christian refugees are being persecuted in Germany. Speaking at an ecumenical service in Düsseldorf on 13 February, he said it was alarming that Christians were being threatened by other asylum seekers in refugee camps. “Concern is growing that politicians and the authorities might not be taking such threats seriously enough. Christian persecution is not a topic of bygone ages,” he warned. Germany must speak out more loudly for the right to religious freedom, a right that Christians in Muslim countries also had. “That is what we demand,” Woelki emphasised.

Protestant pastor Gottfried Martens told katholisch.de that the “mobbing” of Christian refugees in refugee camps in Germany had increased in recent weeks. His parish in Berlin has 1,200 Christian refugee members compared to 150 three years ago.

Martens said it was no longer rare for the entire Muslim community in a refugee shelter to gang up on Christians. Referred to as kafirs, (unbelievers), they were forced to watch videos of beheadings, refused use of the kitchen “because they are unclean”, had their crosses torn from their necks or were even beaten up, Martens said.

He advocated accommodating Christian and Muslim refugees separately. “In our efforts to be tolerant, which are in themselves praiseworthy, we cannot just let Christians become some kind of ‘guinea pigs’,” he said. “Whenever I talk to politicians, I’m told that the Churches do not think that separate housing is necessary and I’m left looking stupid,” he said.

The Catholic Church insists that no distinction must be made between Christian and Muslim refugees. However, Robert Spaemann, arguably Germany’s foremost Catholic philosopher,  told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that if one could not help all refugees, it was “not wrong but very understandable” to favour fellow Christians.