Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) has banned three associations that are said to have collected money in Germany for a foundation of the pro-Iranian Shiite movement Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As the spokesman for the ministry, Steve Alter, announced, the ban on the associations “German Lebanese Family”, “People for People” and “Give Peace”, which had already been pronounced on April 15, was carried out on Wednesday with searches and confiscation measures in Bremen, Hesse and Hamburg , Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein and Rhineland-Palatinate completed.
"Those who support terror will not be safe in Germany," said Seehofer, as his spokesman announced on Twitter.
"Regardless of the garb in which his supporters appear, they will not find a place of retreat in our country," added the minister, who is currently in quarantine at home due to a corona infection.
The three forbidden associations are said to have collected donations and sponsored Hezbollah's “martyr families”.
The aim of the clubs was to promote the fight of Hezbollah against Israel, which goes against the idea of international understanding, it said from the ministry.
Because the certainty that the bereaved would receive financial support in the event of their death increases the willingness of young Hezbollah supporters to participate in the fight against Israel.
Also financed by Iran
According to the assessment of the security authorities, the three associations had been founded to replace the association "Orphans Project Lebanon".
The then Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière (CDU) banned it in 2014.
Hezbollah is a party in Lebanon with its own TV station, charitable projects and its own well-equipped militia. It is supported financially by Iran and with the delivery of weapons. For the movement, whose militia fought on the side of the troops of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian conflict, Germany is not a place of action, but a place of retreat, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In the last published report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the potential of Hezbollah in this country was estimated at around 1050 people. Interior Minister Seehofer had banned Hezbollah in March 2020.