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Hamburg CDU Backs Plan to Recast Blue Mosque as Memorial and Education Hub

City officials face calls to prepare reuse plans despite unresolved court challenges to the IZH ban.

Overview

  • The CDU in Hamburg’s parliament supports a civil-society proposal to create a memorial for victims of Islamism at the Blue Mosque site.
  • The coalition’s "Five Pillars Against Islamism" concept also envisions a constitutionally compliant mosque, a documentation center on political Islam, a youth education campus and a Jina cultural center.
  • The complex remains closed and under federal administration following the July 2024 ban of the Islamische Zentrum Hamburg by then–Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
  • Three lawsuits against the ban are pending at the Federal Administrative Court, so any decision on reuse awaits court rulings.
  • CDU leaders Dennis Thering and Anke Frieling urge the city to prepare a framework now and warn against the site returning to Islamist or autocratic control; Hamburg’s Schura had planned its own proposal but canceled an event.