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July 10, 2009
Posted: 1500 GMT
DRESDEN, Germany –Egyptian Magdi Khalil is an educated man. He lived in Japan for seven years, teaching architecture and designing environmentally-friendly houses. Now he lives in Dresden and teaches at the local university. He says he likes the town - but that the Egyptian community has suffered what he calls "a disaster."
A protester at Cairo airport awaits the body of Marwa El-Sherbini, who was killed in Germany.
He's referring to the killing of Marwa El-Sherbini - an Egyptian woman, mother and wife - in a German courtroom by a man who appears to have acted upon hatred for Muslims. That man, a German man of Russian descent identified only as Alex W. by German authorities, had already been fined for calling his victim, who wore a headscarf, a "terrorist," after she asked him to let her son use a swing in a playground. She had taken him to court; he had been fined and was now going into revision when the incident happened. By all accounts, almost everything that happened in the court room was a disaster. Khalil recounts the details of what has been reported –- and believes many questions remain unanswered He wants to know why Alex W was not searched when he went into the court. No one seems to have noticed that he was carrying a knife. "How can something like this happen in a court where people are supposed to be safe?" Khalil asks me. Khalil also wants to know why, when El-Sherbini's husband went to her aid (and was himself attacked and stabbed by Alex W), a policeman shot him in the leg in the mistaken belief he was the assailant. "Why did the cop think the Muslim-looking man must be the killer?" asks Magdi. The public response after the incident has been muted. It took days for German politicians to react and publicly condemn the act. Khalil asks: "What would happen if an Egyptian man would stab a German woman to death in court?" Khalil is asking questions – and so are many other people. there latent anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany, perhaps in many western European countries? Where were the candlelight vigils for the victims? Where was the public outrage? Why is there no debate about possible political reactions? The German government has since condemned the attack but maintains that its response was adequate. "We cannot tolerate right-wing extremism, hatred of foreigners or Islamophobia in our country," Thomas Steg, a spokesman for Chancellor Merkel, said at a press conference Wednesday. Meanwhile outrage at the killing has continued to grow in Egypt, to where Marwa El-Sherbini’s body has now returned. Khalil is clear: "I believe this was an isolated incident that this has nothing to do with Germany as a whole." But he says the German government needs to answer the questions being asked - not least for its reputation in the Islamic world, for its reputation among Muslims in Germany and to ensure that Marwa El-Sherbini did not die in vain. Posted by: CNN Correspondent, Frederick Pleitgen |
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