A German organization that calls itself True Religion and is known for distributing German-language copies of the Koran was outlawed on Tuesday after authorities accused it of recruiting people to fight in Iraq and Syria.
German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere said that the German government had banned the True Religion organization, which is also known as Read — as in the instruction to read the Korean — because it acted as a “collecting pool” for would-be Muslim fighters.
On Tuesday morning, officers raided 190 premises in more than half of Germany’s 16 states.
Photo: AFP
Materials were secured, but there were no detentions, De Maiziere said.
“The organization brings Islamic jihadists together under the pretext of the harmless distribution of the Koran,” De Maiziere told reporters in Berlin, adding that the authorities were acting against the group because of its work to foster violence, not because of its faith.
“A systematic curtailment of our rule of law has nothing to do with the alleged freedom of religion,” he said.
The move came after months of surveillance of the organization, whose bushy-bearded members have become a common sight in pedestrian shopping areas in major German cities.
De Maiziere said that 140 of the group’s supporters are known to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight on behalf of the Islamic State.
“The translations of the Koran are being distributed along with messages of hatred and unconstitutional ideologies,” De Maiziere said. “Teenagers are being radicalized with conspiracy theories.”
The move came a week after the authorities arrested five men who were accused of aiding the Islamic State in Germany by recruiting members and providing financial and logistics help.
True Religion is the sixth Islamist organization to be banned in Germany since 2012 under an effort to ensure domestic security and to prevent young people from leaving the country to fight abroad.
Germany has been gripped by a wave of small-scale terror attacks this year, including three that were claimed by the Islamic State: the knifing of a policeman in February, and an axe attack by a young refugee and a suicide bombing in July.
The only deaths in those assaults were those of the attackers.
Most of the nearly 1 million migrants and refugees who arrived in Germany last year were Muslims.
Security officials have been concerned that those who become frustrated or disillusioned at the difficulty of starting a new life in Europe could provide fertile ground for militants seeking to recruit.
The campaign to hand out the Korans to passersby was the idea of Ibrahim Abou-Nagie, a Palestinian who preaches a brand of Islam known as Salafism.
German security officials said that he was not in Germany at the time of the raids.
De Maiziere declined to comment on Abou-Nagie’s possible whereabouts.
Abou-Nagie, who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years, has been on the radar of German security officials since 2005, when he set up a Web site that officials say spreads extremist propaganda. An attempt to prosecute Abou-Nagie in 2012 on charges of incitement of religious hatred failed.
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