Excerpt:
Everything seemed to be in place for a protracted xenophobic row and attendant media frenzy in this depressed industrial town near the French border.
A Muslim congregation applied in November to build a minaret and three golden cupolas on the roof of the old movie theater it had converted into a mosque. The far-right party here in the state of Saarland, emboldened by last year's ban on minarets in Switzerland, seized on the issue, calling the proposed 28-foot minaret "the bayonet of Islam."
But after a quick turn in the media spotlight, the pending furor fizzled out. A neighborhood group recently issued a statement with mosque leaders calling for "peaceful and constructive" cooperation, while the mosque's leadership agreed to temporarily shelve the plan for the minaret.
They will spend the rest of the year reaching out to the non-Muslim community, opening their doors to promote understanding before moving ahead. "Whether it comes to building the minaret or not, we've started the dialogue and we're going to continue it," said Atnen Atakli, the mosque's chairman.