BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned a Muslim group it accused of violating basic human rights and the country’s democratic values and conducted raids against two other Muslim groups across the country.
The Interior Ministry said the organization which it banned, Muslim Interaktiv, represented a threat to the country’s constitutional order by promoting antisemitism and discrimination against women and sexual minorities.
The German government argued the group was a particular threat because it promoted Islam as the sole model for the social order and maintained that Islamic law should take precedence over German law in regulating life in the Muslim community, including in areas such as the treatment of women.
“We will respond with the full force of the law to anyone who aggressively calls for a caliphate on our streets, incites hatred against the state of Israel and Jews in an intolerable manner, and despises the rights of women and minorities,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
The ministry also announced that investigations were underway against two other Muslim groups, Generation Islam and Reality Islam.
“We will not allow organizations such as Muslim Interaktiv to undermine our free society with their hatred, despise our democracy, and attack our country from within,” the minister added.
The ministry said in its statement that the group “is particularly opposed to gender equality and freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
“This expresses an intolerance that is incompatible with democracy and human rights,” it added.
Authorities on Wednesday searched seven premises in the northern city of Hamburg, and also conducted searches in 12 premises in Berlin and the central German state of Hesse in connection with the other two groups under investigation.
The government said Muslim Interaktiv sought to indoctrinate as many people as possible and “thus create permanent enemies of the constitution in order to continuously undermine the constitutional order.”
The online presence of Muslim Interaktiv seemed to have been taken down on Wednesday morning and the group could not be reached for comment.
