The EU Member of Parliament of Turkish descent and designate Green party leader Cem Özdemir, has successfully sued a mosque out of a residential house. The Selahaddin-Eyyubi Mosque was located on the first floor of a house in the district of Kreuzberg. A year ago Özdemir moved with his wife and young daughter in this formerly occupied residential house located on the trendy “Kottbusser Platz” in Berlin.
“A mosque in a residential building is unacceptable,” said Özdemir according to the newspaper “taz”. A justification the court followed in its ruling last month. Very interesting in this dispute, which is smoldering since years before Özdemir moved in this house, is the fact that the Selahaddin-Eyyubi Mosque is the only Kurdish mosque in Berlin. According to “Spiegel online” Özdemir described the mosque as a quasi-domicile of the “PKK” which is a Kurdish terror organisation and banned in Germany.
The mosque association, the Kurdish Democratic community, has a leasing contract for its rooms in the residential building since thirteen years. During that time there was tension every now and then between the Turkish and the Kurdish roommates of the house. “The conflict goes on for long,” said Hasan Togrucla who is Özdemir’s Kurdish neighbour according to the “taz”. Togrucla also reported sexual harassment of his eighteen year old daughter and other women.
In October of the last year the situation almost escalated when Turkish nationalists attacked the cafe on the ground floor which belongs to the mosque. Enraged Kurds wanted then to storm Özdemir’s apartment, but were prevented by the police.
