Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière ordered the dissolving of salafist organisation Tauhid Germany on Thursday, saying that the group radicalized youth and encouraged them to travel to Syria to fight for Isis.
“Today’s ban is a clear signal to the militant Jihadist scene,” said the Interior Minister in a statement published on the ministry’s website.
“Organisations like Tauhid Germany are a danger to civil peace. They prey on young people and push them into radicalism, including recruiting them for battle in Syria and Iraq.”
Early on Thursday morning properties associated to the group were searched in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig Holstein.
The Interior Ministry claimed in a statement on its website that Tauhid Germany is a successor organisation to Millatu Ibrahim, a group which was banned in 2012.
The ministry reports that Tauhid Germany spreads propaganda on the internet which “calls for the removal of Germany’s peaceful democratic structure.”
The group works through social media to circulate speeches by fundamentalist Islamic preachers. It has accounts on Youtube, Tumbler, and Twitter, although the Twitter account has been inactive since May 2014.
The ministry has also banned the distribution of around a dozen logos associated with the group.