Germans will go to the polls on Sunday.
Inside the Brotherhood Mosque in Gelsenkirchen, Imam Ibrahim speaks in Arabic and German about the importance of participating in the election for the future of their religion in this country. The mosque is fundamentally Kurdish, but Arabs regularly come to pray alongside Kurds. Imam Ibrahim himself was born to a German mother and a Paleostinian father. He believes voting is a right and Moslems should not be indifferent to it.
"It is like history repeating itself. Our situation is like 1933 before [Adolf] Hitler
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...came to power. The situation is nearly the same from a political perspective, and the media topics they discuss are almost identical. The only difference is that in the past, it was against Jews, now it's against Moslems," he told Rudaw on Monday.
Riyadh Bakr is a young Syrian who has been in Germany for ten years. He is waiting for the Islamic Association in Dusseldorf to decide which political party is suitable for Moslems so he can vote accordingly.
"There is not an ideal political party that meets all Moslem demands. We are in a Western country with its own laws, but we try our best to support the party that aligns with our goals and implements our objectives to a large extent," he said.
Along with the harsh rhetoric against im
Rawa Qaradaghi, a Kurdish-Moslem voter, said the upcoming election in Germany is "very important," adding that "For people like us who are not fully German, it is very important to go vote so we can have some power here in Germany."
Herish Hamakhan has been in Germany for 30 years. He has participated in most elections and even goes to vote wearing Kurdish clothes with his children.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the Greens "are all the parties that are at the forefront, truly at the front of the stage. There are other smaller parties too, but honestly, until now, although people don't usually share their voting preferences, I might vote for CDU perhaps," Hamakhan told Rudaw.
After Christians, Moslems are the second-largest population group in Germany, numbering over five million people.
Kurdish candidate plans to facilitate legal migration in Germany
[Rudaw] Serdar Yuksel, the prominent Kurdish member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), is running for the federal parliamentary elections after 14 years of serving in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament.
"It is important for Kurds... to have representatives in the German parliament, so that Kurdish demands, especially from Kurdistan and northern Iraq, can be heard and the bridge we have built over the past 15 years can now be represented in Berlin," he told Rudaw on Monday.
Germans will go to the polls on Sunday.
The parents of the 51-year-old Yuksel are from Kurdish areas in southeast
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... His family migrated to Germany in 1964, and he was born in Essen. He has been a member of the Social Democratic Party for 36 years. For this election, he campaigns tirelessly because he believes democracy is in danger.
He said his party "works to strengthen democracy," adding that "democracy in Germany has not been this endangered in the 75 years since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany."
He warned against a potential win by far-right parties and called on people to go to the polls.
"We have a far-right holy warrior and fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
party that wants to destroy democracy here. This must be taken very, very seriously. In other countries, people take to the streets and sacrifice their lives to live in a democratic society and vote. But we see that many people unfortunately stay at home. I call on all Kurds to exercise their rights, go vote, and not leave this democracy to the enemies of democracy," he said.
Yuksel highlighted three key goals for his electoral campaign: preserving the right to dual citizenship for asylum-seekers, keeping borders open for refugees fleeing violence and instability, and facilitating the legal migration process for skilled individuals.
Serdar has been a parliamentarian for North Rhine-Westphalia since 2010 and has won the trust of voters in Germany's largest state in four consecutive elections, representing the voices of immigrant communities, particularly the Kurdish diaspora.