Denver- Germany’s largest Islamic advocacy platform has announced that Moroccan-German national Abdassamad El Yazidi is now the group’s official spokesman.
Starting Friday, October 1, El Yazidi will publicly represent the Muslim Coordination Council, according to German news source Deutschlandfunk. El Yazidi announced that his plans as the group’s new spokesperson is to “make a contribution to critical and constructive talks and reduce prejudice and resentment against Muslims and their organizations.”
Prior to his current role, El Yazidi led the Central Council of Muslims in Germany as its Secretary-General. The Central Council of Muslims is one of the organizations that cooperated under the Muslim Coordination Council to further the interests of Muslims in Germany.
The Muslim Coordination Council, formed in 2007, comprises six various Islamic activist groups in Germany. In addition to the Central Council of Muslims, the group also features the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion, the Islamic Council of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers, the Central Council of Moroccans in Germany, and the Union of Albanian Islamic Centers.
Islamic advocacy groups in Germany have continued to work to preserve the religious freedoms of the country’s Islamic population, as a new trend of Islamophobia sweeps through the country.
Recent survey statistics from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation conducted of 2,000 Germans indicated half of Germans questioned whether Islam was a tolerant religion, while almost 66% questioned whether Muslims should be allowed to practice their religion in Germany free of restrictions.
These sentiments are part of a larger trend of Islamophobia currently enveloping Europe, marked by the rise of several anti-Islamic figures to mainstream popularity.
