"There can be no continuation with the IZH"

Ten years after the conclusion of contracts with the Islamic communities in Hamburg, these will be a central topic at the state party conference of the Hamburg Greens. On Saturday, the Greens will meet at the state members' meeting in Wilhelmsburg and will vote there on a proposal from the state executive committee that makes very specific demands for the future of the contracts with the Islamic associations.

Most recently, the Hamburg SPD had passed a similar motion with a large majority at its state party conference. It says: "We are contacting the Hamburg Shura and asking them to exclude the Hamburg Islamic Center from the Shura."

This puts the contractual partner and umbrella organization Schura under pressure. The Islamic Center Hamburg is one of the members of the association - and thus part of the agreement. In November, the members there are to decide on the whereabouts of the IZH. The Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers the IZH, which operates the Blue Mosque on the Outer Alster, to be an outpost of the Iranian mullahs' government in Europe, where "Iranian Islamists" are at work. From this November, the state treaty with the umbrella organization Schura is also to be evaluated.

The Greens are now demanding that the Schura exclude the IZH from its ranks. "After many intensive talks with the Schura and the most difficult debates about their member IZH and their behavior, we now have the clear expectation of the Schura that the membership of the IZH ends there," says the application, whose applicants are primarily the state chairwoman Maryam Blumenthal belongs.

With the IZH as part of the Schura, “these state treaties cannot be continued,” said Blumenthal in a conversation with journalists on Tuesday. The IZH described it as a "tehran-bound body". She made it clear that she was not concerned with excluding the Shiites from the state treaties. "We want there to be a Shiite mosque in Hamburg that is not an extension of Tehran," she emphasized.

But the Green Party's application is not only aimed at the Schura. The other contractual partners should also commit themselves to open social values ​​even more than before. According to the application, it would be important for the Greens, among other things, to include in the preamble of the treaties that all partners explicitly commit themselves to fighting "anti-Semitism and any other form of group-related enmity".

On November 13, 2012, Hamburg's then mayor and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) signed the agreements with Ditib, Schura and the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers. In return for state recognition, the associations committed themselves to the Basic Law and to integration tasks. Steps were jointly agreed on how the communities could have a better impact on the society of the Hanseatic city and what the city could do more for Hamburg's Muslim faith.

Since then there has been repeated criticism of the contracts, the CDU, FDP and AfD have long been demanding termination. For some time now, the Greens and SPD have also been campaigning for the exclusion of the IZH, also under the impression of the violent suppression of the protests in Iran, but want to continue to adhere to the contracts under this premise.

The deputy chairman of the center had left Germany in November, thus forestalling his deportation. In June, the Hamburg Interior Authority ordered the expulsion. It can be proven that he supported militant Shiite extremist and terrorist organizations.

Last week, the Bundestag accepted a motion by the SPD, Greens and FDP parliamentary groups to close the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH). The federal government should examine whether and how the IZH can be closed. A closure has high legal hurdles and would have to stand up in court. Legal proceedings are also currently underway before the administrative court. The IZH is suing the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution and its classification of the IZH and other publications, for example in the report for the protection of the constitution.

In this regard, there has repeatedly been criticism of individual players in the other major umbrella organization, the Ditib, in recent years. According to Blumenthal, however, he sees a development in the right direction here. Ditib Nord has moved further and further away from the Turkish religious authority and has shown, for example by excluding members, that the principles agreed in the contracts are to be adhered to.