Thoroughly Modern Milli Görüs

Many of our European readers — especially those in Germany and Austria — will be familiar with Milli Görüs, the large Islamic organization based among Germany’s ethnic Turks.

Milli Görüs is known to be affiliated with various radical Islamic groups in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East, but until recently this has been an inconvenient truth that the German government and the EU were reluctant to acknowledge.

Now the wind seems to be shifting. In a surprising move, the German authorities have raided Milli Görüs and confiscated some of the group’s assets. Needless to say, Milli Görüs sees the action as a move to stigmatize all Muslims — who have been victimized yet again by the perfidious infidel.

Here’s the story from Hamburger Abendblatt, as translated by JLH:

Raid at Milli Görüs — It’s A Matter Of 10 Million Euros

Investigators nationwide seized material in 26 offices and residences. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, 12 properties were searched.

Hamburg. Yesterday morning, following investigations by the State’s Attorney of Cologne, the offices and other properties of Milli Görüs — according to the Intelligence Service, the largest Islamic organization in Germany — were searched. Investigators in Hamburg knocked on the doors of the Centrum-Mosque in St. Georg and impounded extensive evidentiary material.

According to Chief State’s Attorney, Günther Feld, the spokesman for the office of the Cologne State’s Attorney, the basis of the action against the Islamic Society Milli Görüs (IGMG), which has been under observation by the Intelligence Service for years, was the suspicion of misuse of donations. The leadership of the society is accused of extensive, inappropriate use of members’ donations. Further, it is claimed that that they have withheld employer’s contributions to social insurance (social security). Investigators searched twelve properties in North Rhine-Westphalia and another fourteen in the rest of the country: besides Hamburg, also in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, and Munich. Referring to the ongoing investigation, the Cologne State Attorney withheld further details.

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On its website, the society criticized the searches. “Desperate attempts to criminalize the IGMG,” according to General Secretary Oðuz Üçüncü, “this recent operation will not alter the fact that the accusations against the Islamic religious society IGMG will prove to be unfounded.” Üçüncü said that this operation with its attendant media coverage encouraged the stigmatizing of Muslims in general and Milli Görüs in particular.

The IGMG was founded in Cologne in 1985 and has about 27,500 members, according to latest estimates. That makes it the largest Islamic organization in Germany. The European and German headquarters is in Kerpen (North Rhine-Westphalia). In Hamburg, Milli Görüs is represented by the Alliance of Islamic Societies (BIG) in North Germany, which comprises 17 northern German mosque associations. According to the Intelligence Service, BIG in Hamburg has about 1700 members.

The organization has its ideological roots in the ideas of the Milli Görüs movement, begun by a former Turkish prime minister. In Turkey, the organization works to overcome the separation between religion and state. The goal is a world-wide Islamic social and governmental order.

It’s a sign of how much things have changed that the above article — with its painfully acknowledged truths about radical Islam in Germany — was published in the German MSM. Until recently the nature of Milli Görüs had been shoved clumsily into the PC closet, in the vain hope that the danger it represents would somehow go away.

But the truth is out, and change is in the air. First the Swiss minaret ban, and now Milli Görüs.

What’s next?