 "Joe Adade Boateng of the Islamist network Muslim Interactive (MI) speaks on stage beside a poster reading \"Censored\" during a rally in Hamburg. Reuters")
Germany has banned the ‘Muslim Interactive’ group.
The Islamist group has called for the state of Germany to be overthrown and a caliphate to be established in its place.
Muslim Interactive rejects the concept of Germany as a constitutional democracy and wants Sharia law to be implemented. Germany security agencies have classified it as an extremist group.
But what do we know about it? Let’s take a closer look.
What do we know?
The Islamist group was founded around 2020. It is considered an offshoot of Hizb ut Tahrir (HuT), a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group that has been banned in several nations including Germany, India, the UK, Bangladesh, China, Russia and Pakistan. Germany outlawed HuT in 2003 after it called for violence against Jews and for them to be killed.
Muslim Interactive is mostly in Hamburg and Berlin. The group uses social media apps such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram to appeal to the youth, particularly third-generation Muslims born in Germany between the ages of 15 and 25 who speak fluent German, as well as recent immigrants.
The group, in its slick and stylish short videos, claims that Muslims are discriminated against and are under pressure to assimilate into German society. Painting themselves as defenders of Islam, they have capitalised on the Israel-Palestine conflict and incidents of the Quran being burned around the world to try to increase their outreach.
The group also uses social media to organise demonstrations against the German state. It most recently did so in 2024 at an event entitled ‘Don’t obey the Liars’. Over 1,000 Muslims emerged on the streets of Hamburg, with many holding up signs saying “a caliphate is the solution” and chanting “Allahu Akbar.”
Joe Adade Boateng, the public face of Muslim Interactive , is said to be around 25 years old. The German citizen, who lives in Neuallermöhe, was born in 1998 to a German mother and a Ghanaian father. He took the name ‘Raheem’ around 2020 and is said to be pursuing a teaching degree at the University of Hamburg.
Boateng, in his videos on social media, appears polished and professional, somewhat more akin to an influencer than a preacher. He has a dark, bushy beard and his hair is often shaved very short and neatly trimmed.
An eloquent and smooth speaker, he has claimed that Muslims in Germany are under threat. “We demand the right to have our own Muslim lifestyle!" he has said in his videos. Boateng often rails against the rights women and other minorities are given in Germany. Some have called him a ‘poster boy’ for pop Islamists.
Boateng, at the rally, warned against “media and political campaigns in which Muslims are portrayed as dangerous actors trying to divide the society.” Another speaker claimed that “the sleeping giant would soon awaken,” at which point “the cards will be reshuffled” and those who didn’t support the Muslims “would be held accountable.”
Many in the aftermath of the demonstration had called for the group to be banned, including the parliamentary group of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). The group, in 2023, came under the scanner for initiating violent riots at an unsanctioned demonstration in which three police officers were injured. The group also hit headlines for allegedly forcing some high school students to convert to Islam.
What do experts and authorities say?
They have expressed concern about the group.
“Put delicately, this is a revolutionary political movement pursuing a fundamental upheaval of the ruling order, not only in the Muslim world, but worldwide,” Andreas Jacobs, head of the division for societal cohesion at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, previously told DW.
Experts say the group, much like the manosphere in America, presents a certain lifestyle through which it appeals to men.
“They wear hoodies, drive sports cars, are fit and orient themselves towards hip-hop culture,” Eren Güvercin (43), Islamism expert and deputy federal chairman of the FDP-affiliated organisation “Liberal Diversity,” told Bild.
“He’s a flamboyant personality and not at all stupid,” Güvercin added. “Young people find him fascinating and are quickly captivated by him. He plays the role of the cool older brother.”
The group had been under observation by the authorities for a long time before it was banned. The government has said the group will now be disbanded and its assets confiscated.
Germany’s Interior Ministry said it is doing so as the group violated human rights and threatened the country’s democratic values and constitutional order by promoting antisemitism and discrimination against women and sexual minorities.
The German government argued the group was a particular threat because it promoted Islam as the sole model for the social order and maintained that Islamic law should take precedence over German law in regulating life in the Muslim community, including in areas such as the treatment of women.
“We will respond with the full force of the law to anyone who aggressively calls for a caliphate on our streets, incites hatred against the state of Israel and Jews in an intolerable manner, and despises the rights of women and minorities,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
The ministry also announced that investigations were underway against two other Muslim groups, Generation Islam and Reality Islam. “We will not allow organisations such as Muslim Interactive to undermine our free society with their hatred, despise our democracy, and attack our country from within,” the minister added.
The ministry said in its statement that the group “is particularly opposed to gender equality and freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity.” “This expresses an intolerance that is incompatible with democracy and human rights,” it added.
With inputs from agencies