BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned a Hamburg-based organization accused of promoting the ideology of Iran’s leaders and supporting the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Police searched 53 properties in the country.
The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and its various sub-organizations elsewhere in Germany followed searches in november. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the material gathered during the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such an extent that we ordered the ban today.”
The IZH “promotes an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” while it and its sub-organizations “also support Hezbollah terrorists and aggressively spread anti-Semitism,” Faeser said in a statement.
Her ministry claimed that “as the direct representative of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution’, the IZH “is spreading the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in an aggressive and militant manner and is trying to bring about such a revolution in the Federal Republic of Germany.”
The group, which runs a mosque in Hamburg, has long been under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. The IZH said last fall that it “condemns all forms of violence and extremism and has always advocated peace, tolerance and interfaith dialogue.”
The Interior Ministry said that four Shiite mosques in Germany will be closed because of the ban. The assets of the IZH will also be confiscated.
