German police evacuate Cologne Central Mosque after threatening email

German police sealed off a wide area around Cologne Central Mosque on Tuesday after a threatening email was received.
“The content had such a high threat potential that we had to act immediately,” a police spokesman said.
The mosque, the largest in Germany and one of the biggest in Europe, was evacuated.

A very high number of specialist officers had been searching the mosque complex since the morning, but had so far “found nothing that poses a danger,” the spokesman said.

The operation was gradually wound down after one and a half hours.

Police did not initially comment on the exact content of the email.
The mosque was built and is run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), a branch of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara.

Anti-Muslim attacks have been on the rise in Germany in recent years, fueled by propaganda from far-right parties that exploit fears over the refugee crisis and terrorism.

Police recorded 813 hate crimes against Muslims in 2018. At least 54 Muslims were injured in the attacks, carried out mostly by far-right extremists.

Germany, a country of over 81 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country’s nearly 4.7 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin.

Many Germans of Turkish origin are second- and third-generation descendants of Turkish immigrants who moved to the country during the 1960s.