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Search of the Ansaar International association in Düsseldorf in April 2019.
Photo: Martin Gerten / picture alliance / dpa
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) has banned the Islamist association Ansaar International. Since the early hours of the morning, officials in ten federal states have been searching numerous apartments and rooms of members of the association founded in Düsseldorf in 2012 for SPIEGEL information. Several sub-organizations such as World Wide Resistance-Help and Better World Appeal are also banned at the same time.
According to its own information, Ansaar International supports projects for needy Muslims in war and crisis areas and has raised millions in donations for this.
"We build where others break down," says a self-portrayal of the association's founder.
"We are building wells, orphanages, hospitals, schools and mosques." However, the Federal Ministry of the Interior considers the humanitarian commitment of Ansaar International to be an advance.
The ministry is convinced that some of the donations that the association collects were actually used to support terrorist organizations.
According to the prohibition order, aid funds should directly or indirectly benefit the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the al-Nusra Front in Syria or the Somali Al-Shabab militia.
According to Seehofer's officials, the complicated organizational structure of the association and its sub-associations was created specifically to disguise the payments.
The association is systematically fraudulent against donors by tricking them into serving exclusively charitable purposes, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
"If you want to fight terror, you have to dry up your sources of money," said Seehofer.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Office for the Protection of the Constitution has observed the association for years and classified it as extremist Salafist - an action by Ansaar International against a mention in the authority's annual report failed.
Ansaar International had already been raided in April 2019. At that time, an investigation under association law was initiated and numerous documents were confiscated. Two years later the Federal Ministry of the Interior sees itself confirmed. The association is formally banned because, among other things, it is directed against the idea of international understanding.
According to SPIEGEL information, investigations are underway against several members of the association with the Attorney General on suspicion of supporting a terrorist organization abroad. The club denies the allegations. Two weeks ago, investigators in North Rhine-Westphalia also searched the residential and business premises of a lawyer, whose account apparently at times used to process hundreds of thousands of euros in donations for Ansaar International. He is said to have put some of the money in his own pocket.
The club had tried vehemently to defend itself against the allegations in recent months.
For seven years, Ansaar International has been unjustly "observed and accused by German authorities," wrote the association's founder.
Terrorist groups like Hamas or the al-Nusra Front have never been supported.
"Ansaar does not support extremist or radical groups, nor do we have anything in common with them," it said.
Most recently, the Islamists even hired an agency specializing in crisis PR to cultivate their image.
She should not have an easy task after the association ban.