The German domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said Friday it had acquired new documents confirming that Iran had used the Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg as a propaganda center to export Iran’s Islamic Revolution to Europe.
Marco Hasse, spokesman of the agency, was quoted by German media Friday as saying that Mohammad-Hadi Mofatteh, director of the Islamic Center of Hamburg, which runs the mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, was “directly connected” with the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader and head of state, Ali Khamenei, and received “instructions” from Tehran.
The Islamic Center of Hamburg was built in 1960s with donations from Ayatollah Husayn Borujerdi (1875-1961) for Iranian residents of Germany and soon developed into one of the leading such centers in the world.
According to Hasse, in several of the acquired documents, Mofatteh is referred to as both the supreme leader’s representative and head of the Islamic center. Any portrayal of the center and the mosque as purely religious and independent of the Iranian government, therefore, lacked credibility, he said.
Hasse added that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution held the opinion that the Islamic Center of Hamburg should be considered a venture against the fundamentals of democracy and tolerance and therefore a threat to the German constitution.
In addition, wrote Philipp Woldin, Hamburg Managing Editor of Die Welt newspaper, that there was evidence of links between the Islamic Center of Hamburg and the Lebanese Hezbollah which is classified as a terrorist organization. Woldin also said the center continues publishing ‘The Islamic State’ — a collection of lectures given by the 1979 Iranian revolution leader Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini during exile in Najaf, Iraq — the contents of which “stand in polar opposition to the fundamentals of free, democratic German law.”
Source » iranintl