German Left and AfD Oppose DITIB Mosque Over Diyanet Ties

The Left Par­ty and AfD both oppose a DITIB mosque project in Wup­per­tal, Ger­many, cre­at­ing unusu­al polit­i­cal alliances over dif­fer­ent con­cerns. On 21 Octo­ber 2025, The Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tive report­ed that the Left Par­ty oppos­es the Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union’s mosque on city-owned land because of DITIB’s ties to Turkey’s state reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet and poten­tial loss of the Autonomous Cen­ter, while AfD oppos­es it out of gen­er­al oppo­si­tion to mosque con­struc­tion. The arti­cle begins:

A dis­pute has bro­ken out in Wup­per­tal, Ger­many over the Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union’s (DITIB) plan to build a new mosque and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter on city-owned land on the Gathe, cur­rent­ly home to the left-wing Autonomous Cen­ter (AZ). Both the Left Par­ty and the AfD are against it, but for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons. The project has led to unusu­al polit­i­cal alliances: The Left Par­ty and the AfD both oppose it—the Left because of DITIB’s ties to Turkey’s state reli­gious author­i­ty, Diyanet, and the poten­tial loss of the AZ, and the AfD out of gen­er­al oppo­si­tion to mosque construction.

Read more: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/wuppertal-the-left-and-afd-both-oppose-new-mosque/

The Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) is a nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal par­ty in Ger­many, found­ed in 2013 ini­tial­ly as a Euroscep­tic move­ment opposed to the euro­zone bailout policies.

For more, go here https://www.global-influence-ops.com/wiki/alternative-for-germany-afd/

Key Points

• The Left Par­ty oppos­es DITIB’s mosque project because of the orga­ni­za­tion’s ties to Turkey’s state reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet and con­cerns about tol­er­at­ing nation­al­ist influ­ences after local youths were seen mak­ing right-wing extrem­ist Grey Wolves hand signs at DITIB events.
• The planned 6,000 square meter com­plex approved by the city coun­cil in March 2023 would include a large prayer hall, a day­care facil­i­ty, and apart­ments, with major­i­ty sup­port from SPD May­or Miri­am Scherff, CDU, and Greens describ­ing it as the cen­ter of com­mu­ni­ty life.
• Left-wing activists staged protests under the slo­gan Sub­cul­ture meets High Cul­ture on Sep­tem­ber 6th, enter­ing the Von der Hey­dt Muse­um and briefly occu­py­ing vacant build­ings before police inter­ven­tion, demand­ing sus­pen­sion until a new loca­tion for the Autonomous Cen­ter is found.
• City offi­cials jus­ti­fy the project, cit­ing reli­gious free­dom and hopes it will strength­en lib­er­al voic­es with­in Wup­per­tal’s Turk­ish-Islam­ic com­mu­ni­ty, estab­lish­ing a dia­logue board to ensure trans­paren­cy and con­firm DITIB’s appar­ent inde­pen­dence from Diyanet despite crit­ics’ concerns.

DITIB and Turkish Influence in Germany: Ankara’s Control Over Mosques and Diaspora Operations

The Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs (DITIB) oper­ates as Ger­many’s largest Turk­ish-Mus­lim umbrel­la asso­ci­a­tion, coor­di­nat­ing reli­gious ser­vices for rough­ly nine hun­dred mosque com­mu­ni­ties nation­wide while main­tain­ing insti­tu­tion­al ties to Turkey’s Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet). Found­ed in Cologne in 1984, DITIB has long relied on Diyanet-trained imams assigned from Turkey, pre­sent­ing itself as a cul­tur­al and inte­gra­tion part­ner even as it faces per­sis­tent scruti­ny over Ankara’s influence.

The orga­ni­za­tion func­tions through direct finan­cial and oper­a­tional con­trol from the Turk­ish state. Imams’ salaries are paid by the Diyanet or Turk­ish con­sulates, with the Diyanet deter­min­ing the­o­log­i­cal guide­lines for ser­mons deliv­ered across DITIB’s exten­sive mosque net­work. Beyond cler­i­cal over­sight, trou­bling pat­terns of finan­cial coer­cion have emerged. Accord­ing to Ger­man broad­cast­er NDR, DITIB con­gre­ga­tions trans­ferred dona­tions from wor­ship­pers to Turk­ish con­sulate accounts, with inter­nal doc­u­ments spec­i­fy­ing min­i­mum dona­tion amounts and report­ed­ly threat­en­ing to with­draw imams from com­mu­ni­ties fail­ing to meet fundrais­ing targets.

Ger­many’s Fed­er­al Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or issued an ulti­ma­tum to DITIB in Sep­tem­ber 2025, demand­ing it dis­tance itself from anti­se­mit­ic and Islamist posi­tions as well as Diyanet’s polit­i­cal influ­ence. This pres­sure fol­lows doc­u­ment­ed inci­dents, includ­ing research from Ger­many’s Göt­tin­gen Insti­tute for Democ­ra­cy, find­ing board mem­bers at mul­ti­ple DITIB mosques post­ing anti­se­mit­ic and anti-con­sti­tu­tion­al con­tent on social media. One Stuttgart imam pub­licly praised Hamas founder Ahmad Yasin as a “fight­er for the Pales­tin­ian cause.”

The 2017 “spy­ing imams” affair marked a crit­i­cal turn­ing point when Ger­man fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­gat­ed nine­teen DITIB imams for con­duct­ing espi­onage on Turk­ish oppo­si­tion mem­bers and alleged Gülen move­ment sup­port­ers. For­eign Pol­i­cy report­ed that Ger­man intel­li­gence ser­vices caught imams “red-hand­ed sub­mit­ting lists of sus­pect­ed Gülen sup­port­ers to Turk­ish author­i­ties,” with DITIB’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary issu­ing a for­mal apol­o­gy describ­ing the sur­veil­lance as a “glitch.” A com­pre­hen­sive 380-page Ger­man inte­ri­or min­istry report from 2023 high­light­ed over­lap­ping net­works between DITIB, IGMG, and oth­er Turk­ish nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tions, illus­trat­ing coor­di­nat­ed dias­po­ra influ­ence oper­a­tions direct­ed from Ankara.

Exter­nal References:
• Ger­many pres­sures Turk­ish gov­ern­ment-fund­ed mosques to break with rad­i­cal mes­sag­ing — Nordic Monitor
• Erdo­gan’s Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Mus­lim Cler­ic Spies — For­eign Policy
• Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs — Wikipedia

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