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Last update - 07:12 07/07/2009
German Jews condemn slaying of pregnant Muslim woman
By Agencies
Tags: Racism, Israel News, Germany 

Jews in Germany joined their Muslim compatriots Monday condemnong the horrifying murder of a pregnant Muslim woman in a Dresden courthouse last week.

The secretary of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Stephan Kramer, said he was appalled by the attack.

"All those people who have in the past belittled our concern about a phobia against Islam in Germany are seeing after this awful act how
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rong they were," he said, adding that the German neo-Nazis had been rousing up a climate of xenophobia in Germany for years.


Aiman Mazyek, secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, said such violence was no wonder when Islam was constantly mentioned in the same breath as extremism and terrorism, but he warned against revenge.

"German Muslims must not be infected by the spark of hate that caused this crime," he said. "Let's prove now that the Germans have no cause to be afraid of us."

Marwa al-Shirbini, 31, who regularly wore a scarf, was stabbed 18 times by a German man of Russian descent as she was about to give evidence against him in a civil suit between them in Dresden.

On Monday, thousands of mourners marched behind the coffin of Marwa al-Sherbini, 32, in her Mediterranean hometown of Alexandria where her body was buried after being flown back from Germany.

"There is no god but God and the Germans are the enemies of God," chanted the mourners, while others carried banners condemning racism.


"We will avenge her killing," her brother Tarek el-Sherbini told The Associated Press by telephone from the mosque where prayers were being recited in front of his sister's coffin. "In the West, they don't recognize us. There is racism."

Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.

Her husband, who was in Germany on a research fellowship, came to her aid and was also stabbed by the neighbor and shot in the leg by a security guard who initially mistook him for the attacker, German prosecutors said. He is now in critical condition in a German hospital, according to al-Sherbini's brother.

"The guards thought that as long as he wasn't blond, he must be the attacker so they shot him," al-Sherbini told an Egyptian television station.

The man, who has only been identified as 28-year-old Alex W., remains in detention and prosecutors have opened an investigation on suspicion of murder.

Christian Avenarius, the prosecutor in Dresden where the incident took place, described the killer as driven by a deep hatred of Muslims. "It was very clearly a xenophobic attack of a fanatical lone wolf."

He added that the attacker was a Russian of German descent who had immigrated to Germany in 2003 and had expressed his contempt for Muslims at the start of the trial.

At its regular news conference on Monday, a German government spokesman Thomas Steg said if the attack was racist, the government naturally condemns this in the strongest terms.

The killing has dominated Egyptian media for days, while it has received comparatively little coverage in German and Western media.

A German Muslim group criticized government officials and the media for not paying enough attention to the crime.

The incident in Dresden had anti-Islamic motives. So far, the reactions from politicians and media have been incomprehensibly meager, Aiman Mazyek, the general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, told Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily.

Egyptian commentators said the incident was an example of how hate crimes against Muslims are overlooked in comparison to hate crimes committed by Muslims against Westerners. Many commentators pointed to the uproar that followed the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-born Islamic fundamentalist angry over one of his films criticizing the treatment of Muslim women.

Abdel Azeem Hamad, chief editor of the independent Egyptian daily el-Shorouk, said that if the victim had been a Jew, there would be have been in an uproar.

"What we demand is just some attention to be given to the killing of a young innocent mother on the hands of fanatic extremist," he wrote in his column.

An Egyptian blogger Hicham Maged, "wrote let us play the 'What If' game."

"Just imagine if the situation was reversed and the victim was a Westerner who was stabbed anywhere in the world or - God forbid - in any Middle Eastern country by Muslim extremists," he said.

The Egyptian Pharmacists' Association called for a boycott of German drugs.

According to numerous interviews in Egyptian local papers with el-Sherbini family, the man who stabbed al-Sherbini used to accuse her of being a terrorist, and in one incident, he tried to take off her headscarf.

Laila Shams, al-Sherbini's mother, told the el-Wafd daily that her daughter said she'd difficulty finding a job in Germany because of her head scarf.

"One [employer] suggested she remove her head scarf to get a job. She said no," she said.

Officials from a German Muslim group and the country's main Jewish group made a joint visit Monday to the Dresden hospital where the victim's husband is being treated.

"You don't have to be a Muslim to act against anti-Muslim behavior, and you don't have to be a Jew to act against anti-Semitism," said Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews.

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      1.   All my sympathy.... 20:48  |  Silvienne 06/07/09
      2.   Germany 21:03  |  Dan 06/07/09
      3.   Something to Learn 21:07  |  Hosam 06/07/09
      4.   Lets face it, its the environmemt!! 21:29  |  Abecassis 06/07/09
      5.   An Anti-Semitic Atrocity... 21:32  |  Yosemite 06/07/09
      6.   Fair media coverage is a thing of the past 21:35  |  justis 06/07/09
      7.   To #2: Dan 22:22  |  Affan 06/07/09
      8.   Let get this straight 22:32  |  Gee 06/07/09
      9.   What if 22:35  |  observer 06/07/09
      10.   the killer was an immigrant himself,russian 22:35  |  real observer 06/07/09
      11.   ashamed 22:36  |  Peter 06/07/09
      12.   East Germany 22:36  |  Peter 06/07/09
      13.   Glad to see German Jewish Groups protest this hanious murder, but 22:40  |  GHook93 06/07/09
      14.   News 22:42  |  Mike 06/07/09
      15.   if the victim had been a Jew? 22:56  |  Tony Silver 06/07/09
      16.   You make an interesting point, Abecassis 23:27  |  Nemesis 06/07/09
      17.   Re# 1 Right 23:44  |  Ines 06/07/09
      18.   # 11 peter 23:48  |  rick 06/07/09
      19.   The lowest level... 00:46  |  Frank 07/07/09
      20.   Racism in Egypt and Arab world 01:03  |  Rigoletto 07/07/09
      21.   what if 01:41  |  real vision 07/07/09
      22.   Egyptians shouting racism 01:46  |  Serge 07/07/09
      23.   thousands upon thousands of innocents die as a result of Islamic 02:09  |  horrible 07/07/09
      24.   HOW did this lunatic get a knife into the courtroom? 02:16  |  PETER SM 07/07/09
      25.   East Germany 2 03:45  |  Peter 07/07/09
      26.   i`ll reiterate this, by saying WWIII 04:19  |  VIPER 07/07/09
      27.   Coverage 04:55  |  Tom 07/07/09
      28.   Hosam from Cairo - True but also Arabic press 05:23  |  David Israel 07/07/09
      29.   deepest condolences to the family 05:57  |  Miron 07/07/09
      30.   It is our responsibility... 06:51  |  B Shabat 07/07/09
      31.   Peter SM asks a good question 06:56  |  newageblues 07/07/09
      32.   ?There?s no god but Allah and the Germans are enemies of Allah? 07:06  |  MichaelNYC 07/07/09
      33.   There are rascists in every country. 07:50  |  Magnus K 07/07/09
      34.   Sick and sad 07:56  |  hala 07/07/09
      35.   Silvienne 08:42  |  Brad 07/07/09
      36.   Abecassis 08:45  |  Brad 07/07/09
      37.   Racism in Germany 09:38  |  Mohammad 07/07/09
      38.   nothing to do with Germany 09:51  |  Sarah 07/07/09
      39.   # 15 what do YOU care, peters m? 10:11  |  eric 07/07/09
      40.   @Peter 10:11  |  Kilminster 07/07/09
      41.   #14 you`re absolutely WRONG, who hides behind the name "horrible" 10:23  |  eric 07/07/09
      42.   No civil Suit 10:53  |  Tim 07/07/09
      43.   Jews and Muslims - 1 team 11:56  |  Kamal 07/07/09
      44.   "Jews condemn slaying of pregnant Muslim woman " 12:11  |  David D 07/07/09
      45.   to #9 and #21 12:11  |  Norwegian 07/07/09
      46.   Proud to be British 12:16  |  eddie 07/07/09
      47.   Islamic Terror Against Christians & Europe 12:21  |  David Shapira 07/07/09
      48.   People are just scared of Islamization 12:35  |  Johannes Weinberg 07/07/09
      49.   # 23 mohammad in ramallah 12:35  |  Axel 07/07/09
      50.   Time to Put The German Legal System on Trial... 12:36  |  Michael J 07/07/09
      51.   Fight the good fight 12:40  |  Joseph 07/07/09
      52.   to Sarah #24 12:59  |  Muhammed 07/07/09
      53.   Russian Jew? 13:02  |  Jim 07/07/09
      54.   Interesting headline 13:03  |  Axel 07/07/09
      55.   # 3 hosam 13:07  |  Axel 07/07/09
      56.   #31 13:20  |  rico 07/07/09
      57.   # 34 muhammad from ramallah 13:26  |  Axel 07/07/09
      58.   VIPER 13:43  |  ZISD 07/07/09
      59.   Axel re headline 13:49  |  ZISD 07/07/09
      60.   # 38 michael from Canberra 14:00  |  Axel 07/07/09
      61.   # 47 zisd 14:19  |  Axel 07/07/09
      62.   Axel #47 14:51  |  ZISD 07/07/09
      63.   Arabs tolerance 16:44  |  qies 07/07/09
      64.   #33 Magnus, You seemed to be passing opinions re racism of... 19:40  |  Can. Israeli Friend 07/07/09
      65.   @ Axel from Germany from an ex-German 19:52  |  Anke 07/07/09
      66.   # 65 anke 21:45  |  Axel 07/07/09
      67.   Silvienne 23:19  |  Philippe 07/07/09
      68.   Kamal 23:26  |  Philippe 07/07/09
      69.   Anke 23:31  |  Philippe 07/07/09
      70.   # 65 to anke re: "racism" 08:44  |  eric 08/07/09
      71.   #24, PETER SM, we finally agree on something 11:17  |  VIPER 08/07/09
      72.   #58, can`t work it out ZISD? 11:18  |  VIPER 08/07/09
      73.   Re # 3 Dan this is not a little incident ... 16:06  |  Ines 08/07/09
      74.   Marwa el-Sherbini 19:29  |  Carol Cameron 08/07/09
      75.   @michael 20:41  |  rick 08/07/09
      76.   Russians and Ukrainians 04:31  |  Michelle 10/07/09
      77.   Muhamed 04:52  |  Michelle 10/07/09
      78.   Horrific crime 06:45  |  Ashwin Kumar 14/11/09
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