Today, Germany designated Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist
organization, banning all of its activities in the country. The announcement by
the


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Germany Designates Iran-Backed Hezbollah As A Terrorist Organization In Its
Entirety
 

(New York, N.Y.) – Today, Germany designated
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Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization, banning all of its
activities in the country. The announcement by the Federal Ministry of the
Interior came hours after German authorities raided properties in Bremen, North
Rhine-Westphalia, and Berlin, detaining several suspects accused of providing
financial and propaganda support to the terrorist group. Germany had previously
designated only Hezbollah’s so-called military wing as a terrorist group,
allowing Hezbollah’s political supporters to freely operate in the country.
Germany joins the Netherlands as the only EU member states to recognize the
Iran-backed group as a single entity. The UK also designated Hezbollah in March
2019.

According to German intelligence reports from July 2019, there are
approximately 1,050 Hezbollah supporters and 30 mosques and centers linked to
the group in the country. On July 13, 2019, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard
Grenellaccused <[link removed]>
Hezbollah of “hunting for money in Europe.” A previous December 2019 resolution
in the German parliament recognized Hezbollah’s global criminal activities and
called for both Germany and Europe to freeze all of Hezbollah’s finances by
banning the group in its entirety.

As Counter Extremism Project Senior Researcher Joshua Lipowsky previously
wrote in January 2020, “Hezbollah has not hesitated in the past to strike on
the European continent. It is responsible for the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight
847 traveling from Athens to Rome. It is implicated in the 2012 Bulgaria bus
bombing. A Cypriot court in 2013 sentenced a Hezbollah operative to prison for
planning attacks on Israeli targets. And supporters continue to wave the terror
group’s flags in European capitals during annual demonstrations for Quds Day,
the anti-Israel rally instituted by the Iranian regime.”

To read CEP’s Hezbollah resource, please click here
<[link removed]>.

To read CEP’s Germany resource, please click here
<[link removed]>.

To read the CEP op-ed Time for Germany to outlaw all of Hezbollah, please click
here
<[link removed]>.

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