Attacks on Turkish communities in Europe are 'nothing new'

Since Turkey's Operation Olive Branch started in Afrin, aiming to clear the area of the YPG/PKK and Daesh, Turkish communities in Germany and the Netherlands have seen damage done to their mosques, and even attacks during prayers. Attackers left messages saying, “revenge,” “PKK" and “PYD” on mosques run by Turkish communities in Frankfurt, Kassel, Aachen, Leipzig, Minden in Germany, and in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, in at least six different incidents. 

Worshipers in Aachen were attacked during the morning prayer on January 31. The windows of the mosque were broken and notes were stuck to the walls.

"It is more frightening that this attack occurred during morning prayer. Our only consolidation is nobody got harmed during the attack. We called on all security forces to provide security for Muslims, and to find those responsible for the attack", said Selahattin Demirci, the regional head of the Islamic Society National Vision (IGMG).

The attack in Aachen was not the first of its kind. On January 21, the second day of the operation in Afrin, a Turkish-run mosque was vandalised. The damage is estimated at more than $2,500, according to German media.

While police in Kassel, a city in central Germany, are “assuming the attack is politically motivated”, because of graffiti left on the wall, there has been no concrete action from German security officials ensuring the mosques are protected. The German Ministry of Interior notified TRT World that it is “observing” the situation throughout the Afrin operation.

Even before the operation, there had been incidents that showed the Turkish community in Europe was a target for PKK sympathisers. The Turkish government has criticised European countries for not tackling the issue of PKK sympathisers being free to act, despite the PKK being designated a terrorist group by the European Union, as well as Turkey and the US.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated that Turkey expected Germany to respond, condemning it lack of willingness to provide security for the Turkish community in Germany.

“When we touch on these issues, they become uncomfortable. If a church here was harmed and our police watched, what would the world say? The mosque attacks in Germany are unacceptable,” President Erdogan said on January 27, while speaking at an opening ceremony in Istanbul.

Fundraising, training camps, attacks by the PKK in Europe

The EUROPOL EU Terror Situations and Trends Report, which was issued in mid-2017, states “a number of incidents (by the PKK) targeting Turkish institutions, cultural premises and properties occurred in several EU member states”. In addition to that, “Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Romania and Switzerland reported that the PKK continued its fundraising, propaganda and recruitment activities”, collecting around $6.5 million (5.3 million Euros) in France alone. Switzerland expressed its assumption that the PKK was “running a number of ideological training camps for its youth in remote pre-Alpine areas during the second half of 2016.”

“There is nothing really new. The only new thing is the intensity of attacks we are seeing because of the Afrin operation. Unfortunately, Turkish people are afraid in Europe, they feel that their mosques can be attacked anytime and they don’t trust authorities because they don’t chase the attackers,” Enes Bayrakli, European Studies Director at SETA, told TRT World.

The main problem, according to Bayrakli, is that Europe doesn’t see the PKK as an enemy, and is worried that the group may cause more problems if confronted.

“Turkey expects that the same pressure it is giving Daesh and its sympathisers in Europe, should be given to PKK sympathisers and militants,” concludes Bayrakli.

The estimated number of the Turkish diaspora in Western Europe is 5.5 million people, three million of which are in Germany.

There are approximately 150 mosques and 2,600 Islamic praying rooms in Germany, most of which are maintained by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), a branch of the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey.