Germany's right-wing AfD adopt anti-Islam manifesto

Stuttgart (Germany) (AFP) - Germany's right-wing populist AfD Sunday adopted an anti-Islam policy in a manifesto that also demands curbs to immigration, as a poll showed it is now the country's third strongest party.

Formed only three years ago on a eurosceptic platform, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained strength as the loudest protest voice against Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome to refugees that brought in over one million asylum seekers last year.

With the migrant influx sharply down in recent months, the AfD has shifted focus to the signature issue of the xenophobic Pegida street movement, whose full name is Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident.

"Islam is not part of Germany" ran a headline in the AfD policy paper agreed in a vote by some 2,400 members at the party congress in the western city of Stuttgart.

The paper demanded bans on minarets on mosques, the call to prayer, full-face veils for women and headscarves in schools.

A proposal for a more nuanced formulation -- to "stop Islamism but seek dialogue with Islam" -- was rejected with boos in the mostly-male gathering, which was held in a hall decorated with banners that read "Courage. Truth. Germany."

"Islam is in itself political," retorted one speaker, while another linked the religion with "sharia, suicide bombings and forced marriages".

More broadly, the AfD is presenting itself as a nationalistic conservative force that also questions climate change, promotes traditional gender roles and "family values", would reintroduce military conscription and take Germany out of the euro.

The weekend congress restated its hostility to the single currency, vowing to end "the euro experiment" via a referendum on whether or not Germany should remain in the eurozone.

The party meeting, which closed Sunday, also agreed a simplified tax system for its manifesto, notably aiming to ease the burden on those on low income and families.

Co-leader Joerg Meuthen said the AfD stood for a "modern conservatism" and a "healthy patriotism" while it rejected "the Germany of 1968, infected by the (socialist and environmentalist) red-green left".