Expulsion Order Issued for ‘Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi’ Director of Hamburg Islamic Center
A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry announced the issuance of an expulsion order for “Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi,” the director of the Hamburg Islamic Center.
According to reports from German media, a spokesman for the Department of Internal Security of Hamburg announced this week the issuance of an expulsion order for 57-year-old Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi (after the Hamburg Islamic Center was closed last month), who was the head of this Islamic center.
After the German government declared the Hamburg Islamic Center to be an extremist Islamic organization linked to the Islamic Republic and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, the center was shut down last month. Immediately following the closure of the organization, the German Interior Ministry designated the center as the direct representative of the leader of the Islamic Republic and accused it of aggressively and militantly promoting the ideology of the Iranian government.
The issuance of the closure and prohibition order on the Hamburg Islamic Center, issued in 220 pages by the German Federal Interior Ministry, demonstrates that this center’s relations with Ali Khamenei’s office were very close and how these connections extended to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Furthermore, according to documents obtained by the “Der Spiegel” publication, it shows that Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi was in constant contact via WhatsApp with Mahdi Mostafavi, Deputy of Communications and International Affairs in the office of the leader of the Islamic Republic, and that Mahdi Mostafavi provided precise instructions to Moftakhi in these chats in 2023, which included messages from Ali Khamenei for Germans visiting the Hamburg Islamic Center. Additionally, the content of these messages also formed the focus of this center’s activities in 2024.
Now in the order issued for the expulsion of the director of the Hamburg Islamic Center, it states that Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi must leave German territory by September 11, 2024, at the latest. Moreover, he is not permitted to re-enter Germany or reside in the country, and if he attempts to re-enter Germany, he faces up to three years in prison.
The Iranian government, in response to the closure of the Islamic Center in Hamburg, sealed two branches of a German language teaching institute that had been operating under the supervision of the German Embassy in Tehran over the past few weeks.
It should be noted that the expulsion order for Mohammad Hadi Moftakhi was issued following other expulsions that were on Germany’s political agenda. These expulsions began after a deadly knife attack in the city of Solingen, carried out by a member of ISIS.
