BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Wednesday banned an organization it accuses of being an “outpost” of Iranian theocracy, promoting the ideology of the country’s leadership and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants, as police searched 53 buildings across the country, including a well-known mosque in Hamburg.
The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) and five of its affiliates across Germany follows raids in November. Interior Minister Nancy Faser said the evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed serious allegations, which is why I ordered the bans today.”
In a statement, Faeser said IZH was “promoting radical Islamic and totalitarian ideology in Germany” while it and its affiliates “support Hezbollah terrorists and spread violent anti-Semitism.”
“As a direct representative of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution’, IZH is spreading the ideas of the Islamic Revolution in an aggressive and militant manner and is seeking to bring such a revolution to the Federal Republic of Germany,” the ministry said.
The group’s most famous site, the blue-tiled Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, was among the premises police raided early on Wednesday. Searches were also carried out in Berlin and six other German states.
IZH has long been under the scrutiny of Germany’s domestic intelligence services, which said in their 2023 annual report that IZH is the most important Iranian representative institution in Germany after the Iranian embassy.
The group says there are no reliable figures on members or supporters of the group, which was founded in 1962. Calls for it to be banned have been around for years.
The Interior Ministry said the ban would result in the closure of four Shiite mosques in Germany. The IZH’s assets would also be confiscated. The ministry said there are an estimated 150 to 200 Shiite meeting places in Germany and stressed that it was not an act against religion.
Watch: Islamic extremists rally in Hamburg calling for a caliphate in Germanyhttps://t.co/dwpT5PR4TJ
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 28, 2024
IZH said last fall that it “condemns all forms of violence and extremism and has always advocated peace, tolerance and interreligious dialogue.”
The Interior Ministry said that while the group has tried to present itself as a tolerant and purely religious organization without political ties or agenda, “the investigation has established beyond doubt that IZH’s activities are not merely religious in nature.” The ministry said the group’s aims and activities are contrary to Germany’s constitutional order.
Hamburg’s regional security chief, Andy Grothe, declared the group was now “history.” He said the closure of the inhumane Iranian regime’s base was a “truly effective blow against Islamic extremism.”
Germany’s leading Jewish organizations welcomed the ban. “Iran’s mullah regime and its proxies have bases all over the world and their goal is to destroy democracy and our way of life,” Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews, said in a statement.
Hezbollah is banned in Germany. The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been engaged in near-daily gun battles across the Lebanon-Israel border since war between Israel and Hamas erupted in the Gaza Strip in October.
Germany bans Islamic NGO over terror financing allegations https://t.co/9qHiQL0yne
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 7, 2021
