Some 1,000 people gathered at Hamburg's popular street Steindamm late April, following a call to protests by an organization called Muslim Interactive (MI). Some demonstrators chanted "God is great," and held up signs that read "caliphate is the solution," and "Germany = a dictatorship of values"
Public outcry was quick to follow, with many calling for the organization to be banned. A second demonstration is this weekend
Necla Kelek is a sociologist and head of the Secular Islam Initiative[…]She[…]had been surprised by the sudden demonstration that MI organized. Her organization joined others in putting together a counter-protest
"This is a group that organizes itself through social media, such as TikTok," she told DW. "That makes it all the more dangerous. At least a mosque would give people a place to go and ask questions"
Germany's domestic intelligence authorities have been observing the MI group. Hamburg's security authorities have listed the organization in recent reports
Founded in 2020, authorities believe the group is affiliated with the Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT)[…], which was banned in 2003 after promoting violence and the killing of Jewish people[…]
Security authorities classify MI as extremist. The group calls for a worldwide caliphate, which rejects the democratic order enshrined in Germany's Basic Law
"This is a genuinely political program being rolled out, based on Islam and Sharia law," Andreas Jacobs, head of the division for societal cohesion at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, told DW. "Put delicately, this is a revolutionary political movement pursuing a fundamental upheaval of the ruling order, not only in the Muslim world, but worldwide"
He added that, unlike other Islamist movements such as Salafism, MI places less focus on concrete rules of conduct[…]
Instead, the Middle East expert calls MI an "identitarian youth cult," which places it in line with similar identitarian movements such as that of the so-called Reichbürger
