From the Fortress Europe Facebook page on this event.

Minister of Internal Affairs of Federal Republic of Germany Thomas De Maizière doesn’t see any problem with Muezzin in Germany. 60 decibels, 3 minutes, all conform to the immission law. We played the music in front of his regional office in Saxony – still no problem, Mr. De Maizière?

The signs read: “WE DEMAND that the 60 Db. 3 minute call to prayer STOP

But why do this?

Below, a translation of a German article from

Der Westen

Thanks to Egri Nok

Gladbeck. “Allahu Akbar” resounds daily from the minaret of a mosque in Gladbeck. The council welcomes this, but residents feel bypassed.

For 19 long years it was quiet around the DITIB mosque in the Gladbeck district Butendorf. Until then, there was what is now often called the gentlemen’s agreement between the city and the Muslim community: mosque yes, muezzin no!

But now loudspeakers from the minaret call to prayer once a day, at noon: “Allahu Akbar” – “Allah is the greatest thing.” Around, in Butendorf, there are some who find it anything but great

Butendorf, situated in southern Gladbeck has indeed seen better days. The times of the mining industry, as it were still Graf Moltke colliery. But the district has long left the bad times behind it, where it was considered a stigma to live on many of its streets.

It has been invested, newly built. And so, a few months ago, the city administration a few months ago was well aware that it was a controversial desire with which the Butendorfer mosque community approached them. “We have made ourselves knowledgeable and found that the community just exercises their fundamental right” explains social department Rainer Weichelt.

They spoke to each other, negotiated, and finally convinced the community, not to do the call to prayer five times seven days a week, but only once per day on five days. To back up the Muslims, the City Council expressedly welcomed at its last meeting before Easter the muezzin call. Only the CDU grumbled that the call to Friday prayers should have been enough.

The reactions followed promptly: Apart from “hundred ugly emails from the right-wing scene”, says Weichelt, the muezzin call has become city topic. “We are irritated, feel bypassed,” says Werner Bugzel, spokesman for the Evangelical Church Circle Gladbeck-Bottrop-Dorsten.

They would have liked a conversation with the Muslim community and the municipality. “Instead, we learned it from the press,” says Bugzel.

The Catholic neighboring community is “disappointed” too by the proceeding. In order not to let fuel the fire, Christa Schniering, the Commissioner for Christian-Islamic dialogue of St. Lamberti Community, strives to find forthcoming words.

“We will now wait and see how it sounds in the long run if it remains at the prescribed fifty-five decibels,” says Schniering. The emotions need to “calm down”

There are a lot of Mosques in Germany, but not many Muezzin calls.
We know of exactly nineteen mosques that do call to prayer. But we estimate in fact it is 30 to 35″, says Bekir Alboga, the manager of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious e.V. (DITIB) in Cologne.

In most mosques it was common practice to explicitly renounce the prayer call when applying for the building permit. Many municipalities have let themselves in on this compromise.

“There, where it is called, we haven’t heard any complaints” says the Islam Scientist Alboga.

The new Mosque in Cologne, located in the town center, refrains to do the call to prayer, as well as the great Merkez Mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh. “There is the need for it,” said their spokesman Sinan Celik, “most people work during the week and have no time to pray. I live ten kilometers away. How loud should the call should be?”

Anyway, in the Wielandstraße in Gladbeck on Friday the Muezzin call started as a surprise. Ahead of schedule, sooner than forecast.

This too causes irritation in Gladbeck, and criticism of the communication style of the community. The Gladbecker CDU has expressed their understanding of “fears of foreign infiltration”.

In the Mosque Club they are still convinced that “the polemic will stop soon”. A volume of 55 decibels is not worth mentioning. “You can not even hear much. It’s more of a symbolic act, but it means much to the parishioners. The community is very happy. We are hopeful, “says Figen Güdül-Turpçu, deputy Mosque Association chairman. However, it is sad that people would be so afraid of the reputation confesses Güdül-Turpçu.

Emotions are so charged that even small enough events can fire them. Out of all dates, on Good Friday a couple married in the mosque and celebrated with much honking, gun shots and a motorcade. Word made it that Christian neighbors felt harassed, “their feelings had been trampled.”

[Note from Translator: Actually in German she says “shut down” the emotions, like shut down a computer or a machine, which is extremely flippant, but I don’t know the equivalent English expression]

[Ed: I believe the Arabs have a saying for this. Something about the nose of a camel inside a tent. Once you allow mosques, you will get all that follows. Its only a matter of time till you have minarets and sharia law enforced. This is how it works. The people who warn about the towers and speakers on mosques are always called bigots and alarmists. But this is how it always goes.]

Thank you Egri Nok and Brunhilde as well as Tania Groth for the help on all this.

H/T M on the video.