Chanel on the banned list after extremism curbs typing error
THE German government has admitted mistakenly banning a Chanel Youtube channel in a clampdown on the online presence of an Islamic extremist group.
This week, German authorities raided dozens of properties, including one of the country’s oldest mosques, belonging to the suspected pro-iran group Islamic Centre Hamburg, or IZH.
Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, said IZH had close links to the Tehran regime as well as Hezbollah, the Lebanese group fighting an ongoing conflict with Israel.
Ms Faeser’s department also announced it was banning a series of websites and social media pages affiliated with IZH – but mistakenly put Chanel on the list.
German reporters quickly spotted the blunder in the interior ministry’s statement, which listed a Youtube account belonging to the French fashion and cosmetics house as an Islamic Centre Berlin website.
A spokesman for the interior ministry said yesterday that the inclusion of the Chanel social media channel was an “editorial oversight” that was being fixed. a German newspaper, said the officials had probably mispelt the word “channel” as “chanel” when putting together the list of offending websites.
Several hundred German police officers were deployed to more than 50 locations on Wednesday morning in a massive clampdown on IZH, seizing boxes of evidence and large quantities of cash.
At the Blue Mosque in Hamburg, which was established in the late 1950s by Iranian emigrants, officers marched in with chainsaws and axle grinders, wearing plastic shoe covers to avoid damaging the prayer room.
“Today we have banned the Islamic Centre Hamburg, which propagates an Islamist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” Ms Faeser said in a statement after the raids.
“In addition, the Islamic Centre Hamburg and its sub-organisations support the terrorists of Hezbollah and spread aggressive anti-semitism. This is another consistent step against Islamist extremism.”
Ms Faeser stressed that “it is very important to me to make a clear distinction here: we are not acting against a religion,” noting that IZH was opposed to women’s rights as well as trying to undermine the German state.
Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, the head of the IZH, reports directly to the Islamic Republic according to German intelligence services, despite the group claiming to be non-political.
Mr Mofatteh was previously arrested at Hamburg airport carrying what German media reports described as “secret letters” from the Tehran regime.
Iran has summoned the German ambassador in Tehran over the arrests and decision to ban IZH, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency IRNA.
It comes after Spanish authorities, working in tandem with Germany, dismantled a major gang which was planning to sell drone parts to Hezbollah for use against Israel.
‘The Islamic Centre supports the terrorists of Hezbollah and spreads aggressive anti-semitism’