Hamburg's Blue Mosque and Hezbollah-affiliated center
Germany has shut down several Islamic associations as well as their affiliate mosques and premises for being affiliated with Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
On Thursday, the city-state of Bremen closed the Al-Mustafa Community Center, while Police in Münster, in the North Rhine-Westphalia state, raided the Hezbollah-controlled Imam-Mahdi Mosque and its affiliated center.
Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry outlawed all Hezbollah activities in 2020.
Police spokesperson Antonia Linnenbrink said, “The aim of the mission is to convey the ban. The association’s assets are confiscated. We are also looking for evidence of unconstitutional activities.”
Bremen’s Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer said that Al-Mustafa “actively propagates and promotes violence or comparably serious acts contrary to international law such as terrorism against the State of Israel. The ban of this association is therefore absolutely necessary.”
He added that “there were anti-Israel books and writings in the association's premises, including, for example, a flyer by the political and religious leader of Iran.”
“There is evidence that the Al-Mustafa Community tried to introduce children to its ideology and thus also to that of Hezbollah at an early age. The association's so-called scout group was also banned.”
Earlier in the year, an Islamic organization in Germany removed the Hamburg Islamic Center from its board of directors on allegations that the center is Iran’s “long terrorist arm” in Europe.