The Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) was under investigation for several months over its alleged support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group which is backed by Iran. Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist group by Germany.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Wednesday that the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) would be banned for propagating extremism and that its famous “Blue Mosque” was being searched by police.
“It is very important to me to make a clear distinction here: we are not acting against a religion,” Faeser said, but just against a group accused of undermining the German state as well as women’s rights.
The Imam Ali Mosque, known locally as the Blue Mosque, is one of Germany’s oldest mosques and is operated by the IZH.
This is motivated by politics and islamophobia, no different than NYPD building a bunch of bullshit cases against muslims after 9/11.
We’re talking about a country that considers “from the river to the sea” to be hate speech and requires new citizens affirm their support of a genocidal settler colonial project.
The German authorities claim they have proof of the connection between the IZH and Hezbollah. If they do have the proof, which they now under obligation to provide of course, it is not politics and Islamophobia, it is doing what the law requires.
Now you may think the law should require doing similar things to such organizations aiding Israel. I wouldn’t disagree. But that doesn’t mean you let other organizations that aid a different group that commits atrocities and want a theocracy just because they’re fighting Israel out of some sense of fairness.
Where did you read that they are under obligation to provide anything? They aren’t lol. And won’t. If they wanted to, they could’ve provided it a long time ago.
I don’t mean legal obligation.
Then what’s even the point in mentioning it. There is no obligation. The only obligation that counts is the legal one
If you don’t think there’s an obligation, even if it’s not a legal one, to provide their information so the public can judge their actions, I don’t know what to tell you.
Read the VereinsG they’re required to justify a ban. Said justification has been handed to the IZH, they’re free to publish it or sue the state. Those kinds of things are way more thorough than what the ministries put out in a press release.
Not sure about the Hezbollah connection in particular, but the IZH already sued the Hamburg office for the protection of the constitution over their 2019 report. The office had to retract some bits and pieces, the court acknowledged the office’s difficult position wrt. having to prove something while keeping its confidential sources, well, confidential, but also ruled that that’s their problem, not the IZH’s. What the court did not have them retract was that the IZH is keen on abolishing the free and democratic basic order in Germany, is an arm of Iran’s regime aiming to export itself over the world, etc etc. It really was details.
And just as a side note the IZH is long suspended from Muslim umbrella organisations in Germany. They don’t like Islamists either.
Eh, I disagree. If they keep supporting Israel after this, it demonstrates that they are hypocritical. They are not following the law for its own sake, but as a cudgel, to bludgeon organizations they don’t like while supporting genocidal organizations they do like. And considering they are suppressing groups that directly oppose Israel, not just Muslim ones lately but also anti-Zionist Jewish ones, it becomes even more obvious. If you’re just picking and choosing which cultural groups to suppress, and purposefully letting the imperialist, colonialist Western backed, apartheid ethnostate-based ones through, even with the backing of the law, then you’re just kind of leaning into the targeted scapegoating of fascism.
Not to say that’s definitely what this is, we haven’t seen the investigation evidence yet, but Germany has been leaning into that direction lately.
Ever looked at recent weapons exports to Israel? Or rather their absence? The federation is not granting permission for anything but general military goods (helmets, vests, etc). Only reasonable legal reasoning behind it is that the government thinks that they could be used in a genocide, to commit war crimes, such things.
That is: They’re not saying it openly but the German federal government absolutely shit-binned Netanyahu and his Kahanites as genocidal maniacs. Also if we were still exporting weapons Germany’s streets would be way less calm right now.
Diplomatically speaking, Germany would very much rather sit this one out, and is silently hoping for non-fascists to come to power in Israel, again. People who then can at least be encouraged to restart the peace process. Because one thing’s for sure: There’s no Israeli security without Palestinian freedom, and there also isn’t Palestinian freedom without Israeli security. The two things depend on each other. Germany always understood this, and still does: That supporting Israel means supporting Palestine. The non-fascists on both sides, that is.
How do you know explain them arresting pro-Palestenian voices then during peaceful protests?
They are very much taking a side and it is not the side of Palestinians.
This matches up with the research I’ve done that Germany is sending arms to Israel. Seriously, everywhere I’ve looked shows they are and support Bibi completely. They are sending actual arms, like anti-tank weapons, ammunition, explosives, military vehicles, etc.
Apparently Germany is the second highest supplier of arms to Israel. And have promised to send more.
That’s from like, today lol. It seems they have claimed that most exports are no lethal before, to the Hague , but considering the more recent statement that the Chancellor said they’re going to send a bunch more weapons to Israel, plus all the other sources, and they’re refusal to stop sending weapons in the ICJ using the defense that Hamas is bad and not that they’re not sending weapons, I am going to believe him.
Not to mention other support they’ve shown, like withdrawing funding from the UNRWA which has contributed to the increasing famine and 200,000 deaths right there. Germany is very much not being neutral in this conflict at all. All of their pressure has been on pro-Palestinian voices (even Jewish ones), and all their support has been for Israel.
That is 150% not what he was arrested for. It may very well be the sign he held while being arrested, but one does not imply the other. Never fucking trust Al Jazeera on these things they’re far from neutral or factual.
Germany stopped arms exports days after the attacks. Before Nicaragua started its case at the ICJ, btw.
Will, when? Have, when? Certainly none since the 2000 PzF shortly after the attacks (anti-tank rockets, not really suitable for a genocide), I’d have heard of that. And when again? Presumably once the Israelis got around ousting Netanyahu and his goons. Scholz is very good at waffling and saying nothing, doubly and triply so when pressed, that’s precisely what he’s doing there. No official change in policy – but somehow still nothing gets exported.
It has not. Germany has resumed its responsibilities to UNRWA after Israel’s accusations turned out to be baseless, and no payments from Germany to UNWRA were due during the brief time payments were suspended – so none were missed. If there had been missed payments I’m sure Germany would’ve made up for it.
You should know all of that if you had read even a bit of the ICJ ruling. Which you probably should do before you accuse a country of supporting genocide.
Al Jazeera is a lot less biased on Israel Palestinians issues than western media tends to be. There have been multiple studies on it. But I had a feeling you’d say that which is why I also posted the article from Reuters. Also, Iris Hefets is a woman. There’s a video you can watch of her being arrested for not doing anything but holding a sign. Not to mention there’s all the other pro Palestinian protestors you’ve ignored that have received similar or worse treatment. I think there’s been one in Berlin universities most recently, too.
So ice had some trouble finding the exact judgment, mostly because the case is still ongoing, they just said Germany can keep sending arms to Israel. But from the text I read, they stopped sending arms in January or February 2024. Which isn’t days after the attacks, it’s actually many months after, but still, I’ll concede. That’s pretty good, I’m proud of Germany and way better than what the US is doing. I would disagree that body armor or helmets, fuses, or military vehicles aren’t helping a genocidal state, though, especially since I saw something about mechanical parts for tank engines and stuff like that. Hopefully they keep examining future shipments, but a full BDS movement like happened with South Africa would be preferable, or the sanctions on Russia.
I guess you can presume that, but it seems like quite the leap. To me, it sounds like a political leader reaffirming their support of an apartheid genocide state and saying they’ll go back to sending weapons. But political leaders in the West, especially the US and Germany, are so spineless about Israel, that if he is just saying this to get them off his back while they don’t actually increase support again, all credit to him.
This does seem to be true as well, so my bad. But in my defense, it happened very recently and they put out a statement the same month as ICJ’s response. Wonder if it’s connected lol. But once again, all credit to Germany for resuming payments. It’s definitely a good thing.
I’m not the only one. There are countless articles from tons of Western news sources that I posted above about Germany supporting Israel the second most after the US, including military aid. Not to mention the common sources about their protests, their crackdown on protests, German civil servants sending their government requests to withdraw support from Israel, and more. But they are responding to international criticism way better than other countries, like the US, so I apologize for the facts I did get wrong or were outdated.
Here’s the video. That is very much not what’s happening.
She claims that “she’s not at a protest so it can’t be an illegal one”, meanwhile, back at the taz, she says it was a protest (“Kundgebung”). It might be an odd interaction but then you can also try and politicise the hell out of a cop tangling you up in a discussion and asking your for ID – which btw they can do without any reason at all. The whole thing was over in 30 minutes, no arrest (in the legal sense). Berlin police at that time was very much on edge as in previous years they had to deal with massive violence during the Nakhba protests. There were permitted demonstrations, she could’ve gone to those. You can then also say “but she’s a Jew who’s holding that sign getting tangled up in a discussion with a cop, this is triply outrageous!” – why should there be different laws for Jews and Muslims? It’s all applied equally. That not being the case would be triply outrageous.
I assume the rest of your wall of text is in just as good faith so I won’t bother.
Wait till you hear about countries closing linguistic institutions for being spy agencies.
Seems like a good cover for a spy agency tbh