The Hamburg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution has long considered the Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH), which runs the Blue Mosque on the Alster, to be an outpost of the Iranian Mullah regime in Europe. Iranian Islamists” are at work here. The city is partnered with the centre via a state contract.
This is the subject of frequent criticism. Now the interior authority is taking action against a leading cadre of the centre. The deputy head, Seyed Soliman Mousavifar, will be expelled, the interior authority confirmed. He maintains close contacts with terrorist organisations, it said. The authorities are basing this on findings of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. First, the newspaper “Bild” reported on the case.
After Mousavifar was issued with an order, he now was given three months to leave the country. If he does not leave the country, he could be deported to Iran.
Since November 2012, the city and the Turkish mosque association Ditib, the Shura (Council of Islamic Communities in Hamburg), the Association of Islamic Cultural Centres (Verband der Islamischen Kulturzentren e.V.) and the Alevi community have been linked by a state contract. With the agreement, the city granted the associations more rights at the time. In return, they expressly declared their support for the Basic Law, took on integration tasks and fought against radicalism, also financed with federal and state funds. The agreement was that after ten years the contract would be evaluated in November. Initial talks are underway nearby.
At least one member of the Shura has repeatedly violated this commitment to loyalty to the constitution, so far without consequences for the contract: the Islamic Centre Hamburg. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is said to have presented clear evidence in the case of the leader that he has close ties to several terrorist groups. Specifically, it is about donation associations attributed to Hezbollah, which is now banned in Germany. He is also alleged to have participated in the anti-Semitic Al-Quds Day in Berlin in 2018, a Germany-wide gathering of Israel-haters.
It is doubtful whether this further incident will have a decisive influence on the debate about the State Contract. The signs for the evaluation in November 2022 are “keep it up”. The government faction considers the contract “an important link between the city and the religious communities”, as Ekkehard Wysocki, spokesperson for religious policy of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), finds. Individual extremist members have not yet led to a rethink.
Already last summer, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution presented new evidence that the mosque was controlled by Tehran. The IZH rejected the accusations. At that time, the umbrella organisation Shura stood in front of the centre. A Shura board member said last summer that they believed IZH rather than the security authorities.
After the latest findings, Fatih Yildiz, chairman of the Shura, told the newspaper Abendblatt: “We take the accusations very seriously and will discuss how to proceed.
One thought on “Germany: Deputy head of the Islamic Centre expelled on suspicion of terrorism”
Comments are closed.