German Muslim politician rescinds call to ban veils, crucifixes in schools

Last update - 15:31 27/04/2010

By DPA

Tags: Israel news, Germany, Islam

A woman to be sworn in as Germany's first Muslim regional government minister on Tuesday received renewed political backing after withdrawing a suggestion that Christian crucifixes be removed from public schools.

Aygul Ozkan, 38, apologized for generating a storm by suggesting in a news interview that crucifixes and Muslim veils be banned from secular school classrooms.

Crucifixes still hang in village schools in strongly Catholic regions, but are rare in city schools.

Ozkan, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), is due to be sworn in as social welfare minister in the government of Lower Saxony, one of 16 German states.

The State Premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, renewed his support for Ozkan, and said her provocative remarks were a one-off.

"She has said so many clever things that we think she will be a great example," Wulff said on state ARD television, adding that the debate about school crucifixes had been settled.

Ozkan had "not fully taken into account" that, despite the official separation of church and the state, the institutions worked well together in Lower Saxony, Wulff said.

"This is why we welcome crucifixes in schools," the premier added.

Ozkan, who is a German national born in Hamburg, is the first person of Turkish ancestry to become a minister in any level of German government.

In Germany, 5 per cent of the 80-million-strong population has a Muslim background, according to Berlin government data. The majority are of Turkish origin, following labor immigration encouraged until the 1970s.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1165732.html