Seehofer forbids Ansaar: donations for terrorists

Well construction, orphanages – superficially there is nothing wrong with the activities of Ansaar International. In the background, however, the association is concerned with Salafist proselytizing and terror support, say the security authorities.

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Berlin. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) has banned the Salafist association Ansaar International and all branches of the Islamist association in Germany. As his ministry announced, the ban was carried out on Wednesday morning with searches and seizures in Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse. According to information from security circles, dozens of people and around 70 objects were affected.

The focus of the measures was in North Rhine-Westphalia. In the ten countries, a total of more than 1000 officials were on duty, it said from the Federal Ministry of the Interior. So far, around 150,000 euros in cash and around 800,000 euros in 23 accounts have been seized. According to initial findings, there were no arrests. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said it was a Salafist network with more than 400 supporters. Any successor organizations will also be kept in mind.

To justify the ban, the Federal Ministry of the Interior stated that Ansaar’s fundraising was done with the intention of passing them on to terrorist groups abroad, in particular to the Al-Nusra Front in Syria, which is related to the Al-Qaeda terror network and which was part of the Haiat militia in 2017 Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had risen to the Palestinian Hamas and to Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Some of the support directly benefits these associations. Aid projects are sometimes supported, “which are, however, directly part of the sphere of activity of the respective terrorist organization”.

The ministry believes that the group’s proselytizing activities are against the constitutional order. Here, “enemies of a world order that protects the human dignity of people of different faiths are continually being created”. Children from Germany would be sent to the facilities set up by Ansaar abroad in order to “internalize Salafist extremist content and bring it back to Germany”. According to reports, there is personal overlap between the Ansaar network of associations and the association Die Wahre Religion / Lies !, which became known through Koran distribution campaigns and which was banned in 2016.

The supporters should also include several so-called threats. These are people who the police trust to commit terrorist attacks and other serious politically motivated crimes.

Ansaar International announced that the founder and head of the organization, Joel Abdurahman Kayser, wrote a letter to Seehofer in mid-April. In it he had declared: “We at Ansaar love and live the idea of ​​international understanding”. The Home Office apparently did not convince the letter.

“If you want to fight terrorism, you have to dry up your sources of money,” said Seehofer on Wednesday. “Anyone who allegedly collects donations for a good cause but then finances terrorists cannot hide behind our association law.” The starting point for the ban was a large-scale raid on the network in April 2019, during which extensive material was confiscated. Ansaar International has its headquarters in Düsseldorf, the sub-organization WWR-Help in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia. Around half of the 90 people and objects that were affected at the time were in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The network of associations that have now been banned also includes the Änis Ben-Hatira Foundation named after the German-Tunisian football player, the Somali Committee for Information and Advice in Darmstadt and Surroundings, the women’s rights association ANS.Justice, “Ummashop” and Helpstore Secondhand UG as well as Better World Appeal. The Interior Ministry found that donors were defrauded by the untrue claim that the funds were used exclusively for humanitarian purposes.

In April of this year, apartments in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria were searched in connection with the ban proceedings on suspicion of financing terrorism. The suspicion is directed against three accused between the ages of 32 and 40, said the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor’s Office at the time on request. Investigate suspected fraud and infidelity. One of the accused is a Düsseldorf lawyer.

Seehofer has already issued eight bans since he took office in 2018. The earlier decisions were directed against the Turkish nationalist street gang “Ottoman Germania BC”, two Kurdish associations that are part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned in Germany, Hezbollah, an association of citizens of the Reich, and three right-wing extremist groups.

“The deeds six months ago in Dresden and Vienna warn us: Islamist terror is and will remain one of the greatest dangers to internal security in Germany and Europe,” said the domestic political spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Mathias Middelberg. AfD parliamentary group vice-president Beatrix von Storch demanded that Seehofer should also ban the Muslim Brotherhood.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210505-99-472274 / 8

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