A deportation order was issued this week against Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, the former head of the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH), five weeks after the German authorities banned the organization, a spokeswoman for the Hamburg Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
The decision means that the 57-year-old Shiite cleric is required to leave Germany within 14 days, otherwise he will be deported to his home country Iran at his own expense, she said.
Mofatteh is also prohibited from re-entering Germany and staying there. If he fails to comply, he faces a prison sentence of up to three years.
Fear of Iranian influence
The IZH, which Mottafeh headed from 2018 until its forced closure in July, was considered by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to be controlled by Iran.
In addition, the center promotes “an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, justifying the closure of the center.
“This Islamist ideology is directed against human dignity, women’s rights, an independent judiciary and our democratic government,” she said, but stressed that this step was not directed against Islam as a religion.
Her ministry said the IZH acted as a “representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution” and spread this ideology in an “aggressive and militant manner.”
Mottafeh was considered by the Hamburg branch of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to be the spokesman for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Germany.
The ban on the IZH was accompanied by the confiscation of the organization’s famous “Blue Mosque”, which is located in an upscale area on the banks of the Outer Alster in the port city.
The building, officially called Imam Ali Mosque, is now under the control of the German government.
This article is based on reporting by the news agency dpa.
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