BERLIN

Muslims offered their Friday prayers out in the open on a street in Berlin’s Reinickendorf district after their mosque was heavily damaged during an arson attack on Saturday.

Hundreds of Muslims from different communities joined the prayer and demonstrated in solidarity with the Koca Sinan Mosque, which belonged to the Turkish-Muslim organization DITIB.

Supporters of the terrorist PYD/PKK group had claimed responsibility for the arson attack, as they did for dozens of other attacks that targeted religious places, cultural institutions and shops in recent weeks.

Despite snow and freezing temperatures, almost a thousand Muslims attended the Friday prayer outside the mosque.

The mosque’s imam, Bayram Turk, said the recent wave of violence targeting places of worships had caused worry among the Muslim community.

He urged German authorities to step up security measures at mosques and other Muslim institutions.

At least 27 mosques in Germany were targeted in attacks in the first three months of this year, after the terrorist PYD/PKK group threatened to carry out violent acts to protest against Turkey’s counterterrorism operation in northwestern Syria.

The PKK terrorist organization has been banned in Germany since 1993, but it remains active, with nearly 14,000 followers among the country’s Kurdish immigrant population.

Apart from the PYD/PKK, far-right groups and neo-Nazi gangs also carried out dozens of attacks against migrant organizations, Muslim institutions.

Last year, some 950 Muslims and Muslim institutions were attacked, according to the figures of German Interior Ministry.

At least 33 Muslims were injured in these attacks, which included assaults against Muslim women wearing headscarves and attacks against mosques.