In late July, a group of German-Iranians stood their ground against pro-Islamic Republic activists calling for the re-opening of the Islamic Center of Hamburg and Blue Mosque—institutions controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei before they were shut down by the German government.
No return to the past.
The fifty or so anti-regime protesters stood in front of the so-called Blue Mosque to declare “We say no!” to its reopening. The coalition of women’s rights groups and secular activists also chanted “Women! Life! Freedom!” to show their support for the anti-regime uprising that erupted in response to the death of Mahsa Amini who died in jail after being arrested by Iranian morality police in September 2022 for not wearing a hijab.
They stood in opposition to pro-regime protesters with the Imam Ali Mosque Action Committee, a pro-regime organization fronted at the rally by Christian Sandow, a German convert to Islam.
“The mosque is a sacred, consecrated place of worship, built solely for the purpose of providing a place of worship for Shiites in Hamburg,” he told his audience. “That was the case, and it should be so again. The mosque should once again become an open house for believers—especially for us German Shiites.”
In response, Iranian exile Hourvash Pourkian demanded that the mosque be convertedinte into a cultural center, a place for secular Muslims, for integration, and for education. “No return to the past,” she told the Hamburg Morning Post.
While the Islamists outnumbered the anti-regime protesters, it was a disappointing turnout for the pro-regime activists who expected 2,000 attendees but only attracted 550 supporters according to the Hamburg paper.
Faeser Showed Toughness
The confrontation was a decisive moment for the counter-Islamist movement in Germany. The Islamic Center of Hamburg, which allegedly served as a focal point for Hezbollah operatives’ activity, was arguably the leading institution for spreading aggressive Shiite Islamism on continental Europe.
The fact that anti-regime protesters stood their ground against Khamenei’s supporters is a clear sign of support for Germany’s former interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who closed the Islamic Center and the Blue Mosque on July 24, 2024, declaring that the institutions promoted “an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany” that is “opposed to human dignity. women’s rights, an independent judiciary and our democratic government.”
Intelligence Community Still Alarmed
But for all this talk about standing up against Islamism, numerous reports prepared by German intelligence officials in sixteen German states and the federal government, indicate that the regime has been able to target its opponents on German soil with impunity. The Islamic Republic’s efforts to assassinate Iranian dissidents, European Jews, and pro-Israel supporters was a front-and-center topic in many of these reports.
Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a German-Iranian academic with an expertise on the totalitarian ideology of the clerical regime in Tehran, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) that the reports indicate that “Iranian spies embed themselves in the institutions, where they observe and infiltrate the diverse opposition, organize abductions, carry out murders and extra-legal executions, and engage in money laundering to finance terrorists.”
According to a report recently issued by the Federal German government’s domestic intelligence agency, which is akin to the FBI, “Combating opposition groups and individuals at home and abroad is a key focus of Iranian intelligence activities. Iran’s rulers view such groups as a threat to the continued existence of their rule.”
The intelligence officials wrote in the report, which was issued in June, that “The activities directed against Germany continue to emanate primarily from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). Its focus is particularly on Iranian opposition groups active in Germany.
In addition to MOIS, the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which also operates as an intelligence agency, is also active in Germany.”
Compounding the lax approach by German authorities to Iran’s surveillance operations in the Federal Republic, the authorities continue to allow the Iranian state-run Al-Mustafa Institute in Berlin to operate. In November, FWI first revealed that PayPal terminated its account with the US-sanctioned Al-Mustafa Institute in Berlin.
In Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt, the government permits the pro-Iran regime Center for Islamic Culture in Frankfurt that honored Qasem Soleimani to operate.
The Trump administration is uniquely positioned to take a more confrontational approach with Berlin about its jaenabling of pro-Iran regime institutions. In sharp contrast to the laissez-faire posture of the Biden administration, the first Trump administration—under the direction of former US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell—used its weight to force Germany to outlaw Hezbollah and sanction Iran’s terrorist carrier Mahan Air.
The U.S. and Canada have both classified the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. Germany has refused to designate the IRGC a terrorist entity. From the German political perspective, a terror proscription of the IRGC would damage flourishing German business relations with the IRGC and IRGC-owned companies. From January to May 2025, the trade volume between the Islamic Republic and Germany totaled €528 million.
A WikiLeaks diplomatic dispatch highlighted the resistance of Germany’s political class to cracking down on Iran-Germany economic relations. When then-Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to shut down the Hamburg-based European-Iranian Trade Bank (EIH), a 2019 cable from the U.S. Embassy in London explained the reasoning: “The German business community is very powerful.” This influence apparently led Merkel to protect the bank despite its having been sanctioned by the U.S. for financing Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons and missile programs. The EIH still conducts transactions for German-Iran trade.
The Islamic Republic of Iran executed German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd on bogus charges in 2024.
(Photo Tasnim News Agency via Wikimedia Commons.)
The German intelligence report noted that Iranian agents kidnapped German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 and executed him on bogus charges in 2024. Disturbingly, the intelligence document failed to name Jamshid Sharmahd—a journalist who was outspoken about his opposition to the Islamic regime in Iran—in its report.
The opaque description of Sharmahd captures the larger problem of overly cordial relations between Germany and Iran. Prior to Iran’s brutal murder of Sharmahd, MEFO reported the taxpayer-funded Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP, German Institute for International and Security Affairs), the German foreign ministry’s think tank, ostensibly announced the abandonment of Sharmhad.
However, Germany shut three Iranian consulates in Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg after Sharmahd was murdered. The former left-wing Social Democratic and Green Party government at the time (2024) refused to terminate diplomatic relations with Tehran.
Iran’s regime continues to use its embassy in Berlin to mainstream its revolutionary Shiite Islamism. In March, the Berlin district of Zehlendorf staged a “propaganda show,” according to one newspaper, for the embassies of Iran and Afghanistan, to celebrate the Persian New Year festival of Nowruz. Hamid Nowzari, from the Iranian Refugees Association told Die Tageszeitung, a prominent German newspaper, that the festival is an “insult” to Iranians. “Traditional dances are being performed here for propaganda purposes. In Iran, women would be flogged if they danced in public,” Nowzari said, adding that Zehlendorfshould have refused to hold the event.
The stakes are high in Germany for dissidents who actively oppose the regime’s revolutionary Islamist ideology and terrorism. Germany’s new conservative led government needs to stand up for opponents of the Islamic Republic.
