2024-08-29 19:36:44
At the end of July, the Interior Ministry banned the Islamic Center Hamburg. Now there are further consequences: the former head of the association has to leave the country.
The Hamburg Interior Ministry has expelled the former head of the banned Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH), Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, from Germany. This is according to consistent reports from the NDR and the “Bild” newspaper.
Mofatteh is now supposed to leave the country by September 11th. If he does not comply with the written request from the Hamburg authorities, he will be deported to Iran at his own expense, writes the “Bild”. In addition, Moffateh has been banned from entering and staying in Germany.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) banned the IZH, located on Hamburg’s Outer Alster Lake, around five weeks ago as a “significant Iranian propaganda center in Europe.” Read more about it here. As a direct representative of the Iranian “revolutionary leader,” the association spreads the ideology of the so-called Islamic Revolution in Germany in an aggressive and militant manner, according to a statement from the ministry.
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Police across the country confiscated assets and facilities belonging to the center and five sub-organizations associated with it. Hamburg’s Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) described Mofatteh’s expulsion as “the next logical step we are now taking.”
Mofatteh took over the management of the IZH in the summer of 2018. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, he was most recently the official representative of the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Germany.
Iran summoned the German ambassador in protest against the IZH ban. Most recently, the IZH association filed a lawsuit against the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s ban. The main goal is to reopen the Blue Mosque to believers. You can read more about the lawsuit here. After the ban, the Blue Mosque will initially be under federal administration.