German intelligence says Muslim Brotherhood dangerous for social peace

CAIRO – 5 July 2019: A recent report by Germany's domestic intelligence agency said the Muslim Brotherhood was being closely monitored by Germany due to dangers the report said Islamist groups posed to the country’s democracy.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s (BfV) report said Islamist groups were working to control a large portion of the population and called the groups extremist.

The report said the Muslim Brotherhood could transform into a representative for the interests of Muslims in the eyes of the public and the state, and that the group’s religious ideology could potentially spread among Muslims in North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany at large.

According to the BfV, a foreign-based organization with a political Islamist viewpoint gaining such influence could endanger social peace and harmony.

The report said the Muslim Brotherhood had an agenda in partial conflict with constitutional values, without providing details on this agenda.

The report also suggested public awareness and communications campaigns by the agency as an effective precaution against social penetration efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood and other legal Islamist groups.

Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers are said to be well educated and to work in respected positions, with good connections in Germany and internationally.

The report said the Muslim Brotherhood had been using the contrast between their own group and violent Islamist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) as a way to suggest themselves as a non-problematic alternative, and had presented themselves as an interlocutor for state officials and non-governmental organizations.

The Muslim Brotherhood has an influence over the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD), said the report, and the group has no qualms about collaborating with Cologne-based Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB).

DİTİB was founded as a direct branch of Turkey’s governmental Religious Affairs Directorate and continues to train the imams to work in German mosques, providing Ankara with an opportunity to influence religious migrants in the country.

DİTİB has over 900 mosques in Germany, and has been called on by German politicians to cut ties with Turkey. According to the BfV report, over 10 per cent of these mosques are closely monitored by intelligence services.