Germany bans the IHH
The German government has banned the Turkish 'charity' IHH from raising money in Germany due to the IHH's connections with the Hamas terror organization. Germany's government on Monday banned an organization it accuses of collecting donations that are sent to Hamas-related welfare projects.Unfortunately, I don't expect too many other countries to line up to do it. In addition to Germany's close relations to Israel, they have a large Turkish minority they don't particularly like. That's not true in many other countries in Europe, where a move like this one would more likely raise fears of offending Muslims.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in a statement that the International Humanitarian Relief Organization was banned Monday because it has used donations to support projects in Gaza that are related to Hamas — while presenting their activities to donors as humanitarian help.
De Maiziere said organizations that directly or indirectly work against Israel's right to exist lose their right to be active in Germany.
The IHH, a Turkish charity that was one of the main planners of the Gaza flotilla, is widely considered a terrorist organization by a number of bodies - including the Israeli government - and has been accused of maintaining ties with a number of terror organizations.
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The European Jewish Congress (EJC) applauded the decision to ban the IHH and called on other European nations to follow Germany's lead.
“Over a month ago we called on front-groups like the IHH to be proscribed and banned from raising funds in Europe, we encourage the European Union to give this the highest priority,” EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor said in a statement released Monday. “Now that Germany has shown the way, we hope that European Union and other European governments will officially ban the IHH.”
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:51 PM
2 Comments:
Most European countries won't do it because they don't want to make wave with their growing and restive Muslim population. It may be too little too late a move from Germany but its still better than doing nothing.
Accurate reporting please! The Turkish-German humanitarian aid association Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation e.V. ("International Humanitarian Aid Organization – registered association"), with branches in Belgium, Danmark, The Netherlands, and Austria, uses the initialism "IHH e.V.", bearing a close resemblance to the initialism "IHH" often used for the Turkish foundation. The German IHH has issued a press release clarifying that this similarity, in spite of the different full names, often leads to the two organizations being confused with each other.[14] The Turkish IHH also declared that in spite of the similar names and similar logos, there is no relationship between the organizations, and that it had sued the German IHH for trademark infringement in 2008.[15][16] According to German authorities, IHH Turkey and IHH Germany share the same roots, originally being one organization that split in 1997;[17][18][19] the Turkish IHH has strongly and explicitly contradicted this, stating that the German IHH is not "in any way related", and that the German IHH was founded by "a completely different group of people" having no association with the Turkish IHH
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