The Jihad to Join German Public TV?

The Socialists and the Greens in Hamburg want to bring Islamic zealots into the supervisory council for German public television. Bear in mind that this is hardly a marginal position: the Greens will almost certainly be part of the new government when Angela Merkel’s party (“The Union”, CDU/CSU) collapses after the next general election.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Bild:

Resolution in Hamburg: SPD [Socialists] and Greens want to bring Islamists into NDR broadcasting council

by Björn Stritzel

You spread anti-Semitic and Islamist agitation — and now representatives of these associations are supposed to control the television program of the NDR [Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Northern German Broadcasting]?

The government parliamentary groups SPD and Greens have submitted an application to the Hamburg parliament calling for the “NDR Broadcasting Council to be geared even more closely to the diversity of society”. The application states that the city of Hamburg has already committed itself in contracts with the DITIB regional association Hamburg and the Shura to “work in negotiations on the state media contracts to ensure that these religious communities are represented accordingly on supervisory boards such as the NDR broadcasting council.”

The Broadcasting Council is the highest supervisory body of North German Broadcasting. Here, of all places, are Islamists supposed to move in?

Ditib, the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion [Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı; German: Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt für Religion], is subordinate to the Turkish religious authority Diyanet. Their representatives repeatedly attract attention with anti-Semitic attacks: The Diyanet recently tweeted while Hamas terrorized Israeli civilians with rockets: “The baby killer Israel must be stopped as soon as possible.” The “Islamic Center Hamburg” (IZH) is also represented in the Shura, the “Council of Islamic Communities in Hamburg”. According to the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the IZH is an important institution of the Iranian mullah regime. “The position of the head of the IZH is traditionally occupied by a supporter of the Iranian state doctrine and the Islamic revolutionary goals. He is considered the representative of the revolutionary leader Khamenei in Europe.”

Mohammad Hadi Mofateh (55), the current head, is, according to the intelligence agencies, a “well-trained representative of the current regime in Tehran” who served in the terrorist revolutionary guards. While IZH officials used to support the anti-Semitic Quds March, which called for the destruction of Israel, it was canceled last year due to the corona situation. Instead, according to the Protection of the Constitution, a “Shiite extremist with close ties to the IZH” held an online event on Quds Day. The LfV Hamburg has been reporting on the IZH for three decades because of “the knowledge about efforts against the free democratic basic order”. And such Islamists should now control the broadcasting council of the NDR?

“We are very irritated by these efforts by the state government in Hamburg,” says Remko Leemhuis, director of the AJC Berlin. “It goes without saying that it is to be welcomed if the Broadcasting Council wishes to reflect social diversity. However, that must not mean that organizations such as the IZH or DITIB should be involved,” Leemhuis told BILD.

“After all, the institutions and organizations do not represent the interests of Hamburg’s Muslims, but those of the anti-Semitic regime in Tehran and Erdogan’s dictatorship. It is simply a scandal that regimes that lock up journalists or even execute them are supposed to be allowed to influence the organization of public broadcasting in this country through their governors. We urgently warn against involving these extremists.”

The Hamburg CDU member of the Bundestag Christoph de Vries (46) also sharply criticized the decision. “With this demand, the SPD and the Greens are taking their cuddling course with Islamists and representatives of political Islam in Hamburg to the extreme,” the interior expert told BILD. “It is madness to want to occupy the Broadcasting Council with a representative of the Shura, whose member IZH has been observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution for decades and controlled directly by the Iranian mullah regime. The same applies to the mosque association Ditib, which reports to the Turkish President Erdogan. It is also inappropriate that Islamic religious communities should be more represented in the Broadcasting Council with three representatives than the churches. “If the SPD and the Greens are even remotely serious about the fight for our liberal democracy and against anti-Semitism, then they have to correct this parliamentary resolution immediately.”

One thought on “The Jihad to Join German Public TV?

  1. I am pretty sure that Mr. Hugh Greene, brother of author Graham Greene, would rotate in his grave on the shores of Lake Geneva.
    He was the founder father of NDR right after the war and left a fine heritage…. so far. Today , it is a pc hotbed, asis his other legacy, the BBC.

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