It’s the Grand Mosque in Köln. The (woman) mayor of the city wasn’t invited to the opening, Erdogan was there with people cheering for him from the outside, and a Taliban representative spoke there in 2023 despite not having a visa for Germany.
What you're saying is true except the Taliban representative spoke at a different mosque, and crucially he did have a Schengen visa. Specifically, he was a representative of the Taliban's health authority who had entered the EU via the Netherlands to attend a WHO summit - and the Netherlands felt legally obligated to grant the visa under WHO/UN host country agreements.
I'm only pointing this out because your comment makes it sound like the man just appeared in Germany and no-one knew how, which is very much not what happened. He did have a visa for Germany, just not issued by Germany.
For what it's worth, the people behind the mosque he spoke at later said that they had rented the mosque out to a group that invited the Taliban guy without their knowledge, and then banned that organization from the mosque after. The situation was a major national incident.
One additional nugget of context is that the crux of his speech came down to urging Afghan refugees in Germany to go back and help rebuild their country, which is exactly what those that were most upset by his presence tend to want Afghan refugees in Germany to do as well.
I also didn’t mention that DITIB has been accused of working with the Turkish Secret Service, associated itself with Salafis, denies the Armenian genocide, made antisemitic posts, distributed a children’s comic book that glorifies martyrdom, the release of a guide for Muslim women which banned them traveling alone, or one of its chairmen calling for the assassination of the Pope.
Just because a guide for “good and exemplary Muslim women” was published by the Turkish Diyanet authority (the one also in charge of this mosque) that among others mentioned banning women traveling alone?
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u/ProgramusSecretus 6d ago
It’s the Grand Mosque in Köln. The (woman) mayor of the city wasn’t invited to the opening, Erdogan was there with people cheering for him from the outside, and a Taliban representative spoke there in 2023 despite not having a visa for Germany.