Germany carries out raids and bans a group accused of links to Iran and support for Hezbollah

BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned an organization accused of being an “outpost” of Iran's theocracy, promoting the ideology of its leadership and supporting Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group. Police raided 53 properties around the country, including a prominent mosque in Hamburg.

The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and five suborganizations around Germany followed searches in November. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such a degree that we ordered the ban today.”

The IZH “promotes an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” while it and its suborganizations “also support the terrorists of Hezbollah and spread aggressive antisemitism,” Faeser said in a statement.

Her ministry said that “as the direct representative of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution,' the IZH disseminates the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in an aggressive and militant way and seeks to bring about such a revolution in the Federal Republic of Germany.”

The distinctive blue-tiled Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, the group's most prominent facility, was among the properties raided by police early Wednesday. There were also raids in Berlin and six other German states.

The IZH has long been under observation by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, which said in its annual report for 2023 that it is Iran's most important representative in Germany beside the country's embassy.

It said there were no reliable figures for members or supporters of the group, founded in 1962. There have been calls for it to be banned for years.

Iran's Foreign Ministry responded to the closure by summoning Germany's ambassador to Tehran, Hans-Udo Muzel, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The ministry's director for western European nations, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, “strongly objected” to the ban and called it “a hostile act" that contradicts "basic principles of human rights,” the report said.

Germany's Interior Ministry said that, because of the ban, four Shiite mosques in the country will be closed. The IZH’s assets are also being confiscated. There are an estimated 150 to 200 Shiite congregations in Germany, according to the ministry, which stressed that it wasn’t acting against a religion.

The IZH said last fall that it “condemns every form of violence and extremism and has always advocated peace, tolerance and interreligious dialogue.”

The Interior Ministry said that, while the group tries to present itself as a tolerant and purely religious organization without political ties or a political agenda, “investigations have confirmed without a doubt that the IZH’s activities are not simply religious in nature.” It said the group's purpose and activities are opposed to Germany's constitutional order.

The top regional security official in Hamburg, Andy Grote, declared that the group is now “history.” He said that “the closure of this outpost of the inhuman Iranian regime is a really effective hit against Islamic extremism.”

Germany's main Jewish organization welcomed the ban. “Iran's mullah regime and its proxies are in position worldwide — their aim is the destruction of democracy and our way of living,” Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews, said in a statement.

Hezbollah is banned in Germany. The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been trading near-daily exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza broke out in October.

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Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.