German arrests at protest against E Berlin mosque

This is not good. Tarring the protesters with the Neo-Nazi brush.

German police have arrested 15 far-right extremists and five counter-protestors in the latest round of clashes over the controversial construction of the first mosque in the former East Berlin.

Some 340 police were deployed to deal with almost 600 demonstrators taking part in a protest on Wednesday night against the planned Ahmadiyya mosque in the Pankow-Heinersdorf neighborhood.

It ended in violent clashes between police, protestors and counter-protestors, police said on Thursday.

Officers said that the troublemakers, believed to be far-right extremists, now face charges of assault, disturbing the peace and resisting the police.

A point of contention...

Although the debate has been hijacked by the far-right, the main objections come from residents who insist their opposition is not ideological. They say they oppose the mosque purely on the grounds that there are no Muslims in the neighborhood and therefore no need for a mosque. Others say they fear an "Islamization" of the area, and that the new building will turn a quiet part of Berlin into a racial trouble-spot.

Muslim authorities argue that the mosque near the city's Tegel airport had become too crowded and that land in Pankow-Heinersdorf, which used to belong to the communist East German state, was cheap.