Germany cracks down on Muslim groups viewed as threats
Germany banned a Muslim group it accused of violating human rights and the country’s democratic values and raided two more Muslim groups across the country.
The interior ministry said the organization it banned, Muslim Interaktiv, posed a threat to the country’s constitutional order by promoting antisemitism and discrimination against women and sexual minorities.
The group is known for its deliberate online presence, which it uses to appeal specifically to young Muslims who feel alienated or discriminated against in Germany’s Christian-majority society.
The German government argued that the group posed a particular threat because it promoted Islam as the sole model for social order and because Islamic law took precedence over German law in regulating life in the Muslim community, including areas such as the treatment of women.
The German government has been acting more forcefully against extremism in recent years, banning numerous extremist groups, including many far-right and Muslim organisations.
This crackdown comes after a series of attacks by both Muslim extremists and far-right groups planned to disrupt the country’s order.
“We will respond with the full force of the law to anyone who aggressively calls for a caliphate on our streets, who unbearably incites hatred against the state of Israel and Jews, and who belittles the rights of women and minorities,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
The ministry also announced that investigations into two other Muslim groups, Generation Islam and Reality Islam, are ongoing.
“We will not allow organizations like Muslim Interaktiv to undermine our free society with hate, to belittle our democracy, to attack our country from within,” the minister said.
The ministry said the group “is particularly opposed to gender equality and freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
“This is an expression of intolerance that is incompatible with democracy and human rights.”
Authorities searched seven facilities in the northern city of Hamburg on Wednesday and also searched 12 facilities in Berlin and the central German state of Hessen in connection with two other groups under investigation.
The government said Muslim Interaktiv was trying to brainwash as many people as possible, “thus creating permanent enemies of the constitution to continually undermine the constitutional order.”
Hamburg’s domestic intelligence service wrote in a recent report that Muslim Interaktiv’s leaders exploited socially relevant topics in their online posts and videos “to portray the continuing attitude of alleged rejection of politics and society in Germany towards the entire Muslim community,” DPA reported.
