BERLIN –
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 …