Germany’s highest court ruled on Wednesday, December 7, that ultra-conservative Muslim girls must take part in mixed swimming classes at school…Germany is in the grip of a heated public debate about the role of Islam in society as it seeks to integrate more than a million mainly Muslim asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution who have entered this year and last.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose conservatives have been punished at the polls in regional elections by voters angry at her open-door policy, proposed a ban on full-face Muslim veils.

Her Christian Democrats, who have been bleeding support to the AfD, a populist party that says Islam is incompatible with the constitution, toughened their tone on integrating migrants at a party conference this week. Wednesday’s ruling could give more credibility to future attempts by the government to ban the full-face veil after a parliamentary election next year.

Source: Reuters