The Interior Ministry of the Brandenburg region near Berlin banned the Islamic Centre Fürstenwalde al-Salam (IZF) on Thursday for alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Brandenburg's Christian Democrat (CDU) Interior Minister Michael Stübgen said in a statement that the measure was justified because the IZF's activities ‘contradict international understanding and the idea of constitutional order’.

Stübgen argued that “the embers of an Islamist culture worthy of the Stone Age must be extinguished while they are still in Bloom.”

According to the press release, the centre's premises in Fürstenwalde/Spree and its offices in Brandenburg and Berlin were searched.

The ban comes just ten days before elections for the renewal of the parliament in the Brandenburg region, where strict measures are being taken in the name of combating radical Islam in Germany and where the far-right could become even stronger.

Founded in 2018 in Fürstenwalde, east of Berlin, the IZF runs a mosque and offers a wide range of activities for Muslims in the region.

In July 2023, the IZF was classified as an extremist association by the Brandenburg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

This measure was justified on the grounds that the association spreads anti-Semitic rhetoric and rejects Israel's right to exist.

The country was shaken at the end of August by a deadly knife attack in Solingen (west), which was claimed by ISIS. The attack took place a week before regional elections in two regions in eastern Germany. These elections resulted in the victory of the far right, which agitated on the themes of migration and insecurity.