STUTTGART: Members of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Sunday backed an election manifesto that says Islam is not compatible with the constitution and calls for a ban on minarets and the burqa.

Set up three years ago, the AfD has been buoyed by Europe’s migrant crisis, which saw the arrival of more than one million, mostly Muslim migrants, in Germany last year. The party has no lawmakers in the federal parliament in Berlin but has members in half of Germany’s 16 regional state assemblies.

Opinion polls give AfD support of up to 14 per cent, presenting a serious challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and other established parties ahead of the 2017 federal election. They rule out any coalition with the AfD.

In a raucous debate on the second day of a party congress, many of the 2,000 members cheered calls from the podium for measures against “Islamic symbols of power” and jeered a plea for dialogue with Germany’s Muslims.

“Islam is foreign to us and for that reason it cannot invoke the principle of religious freedom to the same degree as Christianity,” said Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an AfD lawmaker from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, to loud applause.

Merkel has said freedom of religion for all is guaranteed by Germany’s constitution and has said on many occasions that Islam belongs to Germany.

Up to 2,000 left-wing demonstrators clashed with police on Saturday as they tried to break up the first full AfD conference. About 500 people were briefly detained and 10 police officers were lightly injured, a police spokesman said.

The chapter of the AfD manifesto concerning Muslims is entitled “Islam is not a part of Germany”. The manifesto demands a ban to minarets — the towers of a mosque from where the call to Muslim prayer is made — and the burqa, the all-encompassing body garment worn by some conservative Muslim women.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016