Germany seems more decisive over deportations than UK

Two items from the German press this morning. First from DW

Germany: Ex-head of banned Islamic center faces deportation

Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, the ex-head of the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH), was issued a deportation order this week, five weeks after  German authorities banned the organization, a spokeswoman for Hamburg’s Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

The order means the 57-year-old Shiite Muslim cleric has been called upon to leave Germany within 14 days or be deported to his homeland — Iran — at his own cost, she said.

Mofatteh is also forbidden to reenter Germany or spend any time in the country. If he were to disobey, he would face a prison sentence of up to three years.

The building, officially called the Imam Ali Mosque, is now under the control of the German government. . . the center promoted “an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement issued to justify the move to close it down. This Islamist ideology is opposed to human dignity, women’s rights, an independent judiciary and our democratic government,” she said, stressing, however, that the move was not directed against Islam as a religion…”

And also DW

Deportation flight leaves Germany for Afghanistan

A deportation flight to Afghanistan has left Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport, the Interior Ministry for the state of Saxony said on Friday.  It is the first deportation of Afghans back to their home country since the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021.

“These were Afghan nationals, all of whom were convicted offenders who had no right to stay in Germany and against whom deportation orders had been issued,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

A Qatar Airways charter jet carrying 28 Afghan offenders brought from various German states left Leipzig, the biggest city in the eastern state of Saxony, for Kabul at 6:56 am (0456 GMT).

Germany’s federal Interior Ministry organized the operation.

In the wake of the deadly knife attack in Mannheim at the end of May, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the deportation of the most dangerous criminals and terror suspects to Afghanistan and Syria would be possible again.

The discussion has grown increasingly heated after three people were killed and eight wounded in the attack which took place during a festival marking Solingen’s 650 years.

According to German news agency DPA demonstrations like this one after the terror murders in Solingen risk hurting tourism. It wouldn’t put me off but too much jihad might.