The Hamburg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) has new information about close links between the Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH) and the Iranian regime.
Current Iranian documents serve as proof that the IZH is an “outpost of Tehran bound by instructions”, the LfV states in a report of several pages which the newspaper WELT has evaluated. The goal is the worldwide “export” of the Islamic revolution.
This is particularly important because IZH representatives have for years denied accusations of political influence from Iran. In addition, the controversial mosque community still receives political backing from Hamburg’s red-green senate. The new findings also concern IZH’s links to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah.
The IZH director, Imam Mohammad Hadi Moffateh, affirmed months ago in an interview with WELT: “Neither before nor after the revolution did the Islamic Centre Hamburg have any connections to the Iranian state.” Nevertheless, Moffateh confirmed at the time that he maintained personal contact with state leader Khamenei.
The LfV stresses that new documents even prove that the IZH director was “bound by instructions” to the regime. In several letters addressed directly to Moffateh, he is referred to as “honoured representative of the Supreme Leader, head of the Islamic Centre Hamburg”. The IZH is the supporting association of the Blue Mosque on the Außenalster.
“It is hereby quasi-officially confirmed that Mofatteh is to be regarded as the official deputy of Khomeini’s successor Ayatollah Khamenei,” the LfV affirms. Moffateh had received another letter from a known Holocaust denier.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution accuses the IZH of unbelievable self-portrayal as an independent institution. “The newly obtained findings substantiate that the IZH is one of the most important institutions of the Iranian regime in Europe,” clarifies LfV spokesman Marco Haase in an interview with WELT.
The special significance of the IZH as an “anti-constitutional endeavour” lies in the fact that it does not openly present itself as recognisably Islamist, “but rather presents itself as an intercultural and interreligious meeting place in order to be accepted as an interlocutor in politics, culture and society”.
The IZH regularly organises commemorative and festive events in its rooms and also publishes a Muslim children’s magazine.
The Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution also reports on IZH’s personal and ideological connections to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah. In May 2021, the Federal Ministry of the Interior had banned three associations that allegedly collected donations for the organisation, which is banned in this country. Among other things, the organisation seeks the destruction of Israel.
According to the LfV Hamburg, the IZH supports “local structures of the terrorist” Hezbollah, which has been banned.
For example, the deputy head of IZH is said to have been a speaker at an event organised by a banned Hezbollah association. In addition, “a high-ranking so-called travelling sheikh of Hizb Allah visited the IZH and had conversations with IZH leaders there”.
Last but not least, according to the LfV’s accusation, the IZH publishes books in which anti-Semitic stereotypes are adopted. “Thus it says about the ‘Zionists and their backers’ that they intend to ‘bring the whole world under their regiment’.”
In other books, it is recommended that state action be based on Islamic law – the Sharia. In this context, there is also talk of brutal “Hadd” punishments. These include stoning and flogging.
The German newspaper WELT had already made the role of the IZH and its connections to the Iranian regime the subject of a TV documentary at the end of 2020. Christoph de Vries, Christian Democratic Party (CDU) member of the Bundestag, considered a ban on the IZH by Hamburg’s Interior Ministry to be “long overdue”.
Hamburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner Stefan Hensel also recently spoke out in favour of a ban. “They are representatives of a country that demands every other day that Israel must disappear from the map,” Hensel said in the newspaper WELT AM SONNTAG.
Despite warnings from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hamburg’s Senate has so far apparently seen no reason to question the State Contract with the Council of Islamic Communities in Hamburg, known as the “Schura” in abbreviated form. The IZH is part of this Schura.
Ekkehard Wysocki ( Social Democratic Party), spokesperson for churches and religious communities, said at the end of 2020: “We are sticking to the contract with the Schura. We are also doing so with a view to a new state treaty in 2022/2023.”