German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Wednesday that the Islamic Center of Hamburg (IZH) would be banned for spreading extremism and that police would raid its famous “Blue Mosque. “
“For me it is very important to make a clear difference: we are not acting against a religion,” Faeser said, but simply against an organization accused of undermining the German state and women’s rights.
The Imam Ali Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, is one of the oldest mosques in Germany and is controlled through the IZH.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador on Wednesday over the ban, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency. On social media platform X, formerly Twitter, the ministry calls the ban an “example of Islamophobia” and a violation of freedom of expression.
Asked about the ambassador’s summons, a German Foreign Ministry official told Reuters that it was up to Iran to move toward closer relations.
The IZH is an extension of the Iranian regime in Germany and is believed to have significant influence over certain mosques and associations, according to German internal intelligence services.
The IZH is being investigated for “spreading competitive anti-Semitism,” Faeser said Wednesday, adding that raids on the organization in November established evidence of its ties to Hezbollah and led to Wednesday’s ban.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said it “has so far banned the Islamic Center of Hamburg and its affiliated organizations in Germany, as it is an extremist Islamist organization pursuing unconstitutional goals. ”
The ministry accused the organization of manipulating Iranian revolutionary concepts, writing that IZH worked on those concepts “competitively and militantly. “
The citizens of Hamburg have been calling for an investigation into the ZHH for years.
The federal states of Bremen, Bavaria, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin were also investigated. The ministry said 53 homes were searched and 4 mosques were closed.
Last year, the Interior Ministry said the IZH was suspected of “acting against the constitutional order” and “supporting [the] Hezbollah terrorist organization. “
In 2020, Germany designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and banned its presence on German soil.
en/rm (dpa, Reuters)