German Ruling Coalition Considering Closure of Iran-Linked Mosque in Hamburg

Ger­man media is report­ing that in light of the protests in Iran, the rul­ing coali­tion is con­sid­er­ing the clo­sure of the Islam­ic Zen­trum Ham­burg (IZH). Accord­ing to the DPA report, the IZH is regard­ed as the “most impor­tant off­shoot of the Iran­ian regime in Germany:

Novem­ber 11, 2022 The traf­fic light par­ties in the Bun­destag want to sup­port the his­toric wave of protests in Iran. To this end, the SPD, Greens and FDP are plan­ning a new pack­age of mea­sures in the Bun­destag. This is intend­ed to increase the pres­sure on the regime in Tehran. In the draft of a motion, which is avail­able to the news agency dpa, in addi­tion to numer­ous actions at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, there is also talk of clos­ing the Islam­ic Cen­ter Ham­burg (IZH). Accord­ing to the motion, which is to be vot­ed on as ear­ly as this Wednes­day, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment should exam­ine whether and how the con­tro­ver­sial insti­tu­tion could be closed. First the Die Welt had report­ed on it. The IZH is con­sid­ered the most impor­tant off­shoot of the Iran­ian regime in Ger­many. It is clas­si­fied as extrem­ist by the Ham­burg Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion. The agency has been mon­i­tor­ing the com­mu­ni­ty for many years and describes it, along with the Iran­ian Embassy, as “Iran’s most impor­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Ger­many and a sig­nif­i­cant pro­pa­gan­da cen­ter” in Europe. Green Par­ty leader Omid Nouripour had already called for the cen­ter to be closed months ago, call­ing it “the regime’s most impor­tant spy nest in Ger­many.” The SPIEGEL had already report­ed in Octo­ber , that the Ham­burg state gov­ern­ment also dis­tanced itself from the IZH. Deputy May­or Katha­ri­na Fege­bank (Greens) already pub­licly opposed the cen­ter at that time and urged to end coop­er­a­tions. The traf­fic light fac­tions bring oth­er mea­sures into play besides a pos­si­ble clo­sure of the IZH. The two dozen or so sub-items of the par­lia­men­tary motion now include an expan­sion of sanc­tions against Tehran, con­dem­na­tion of vio­lent attacks against demon­stra­tors and improved pro­tec­tion for Iran­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ures in Ger­many. [Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man with DeepL with edits]

Rad the rest here.

In July, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that the Ger­man gov­ern­ment had expelled a senior leader of the IVH because he had  close con­tacts with ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.” We report­ed in Feb­ru­ary that the Ger­man domes­tic intel­li­gence agency had found evi­dence that the IZH was linked to the Iran­ian government.