Caliphate_State
Caliphate State
Turkish Islamist group based in Cologne, Germany
Caliphate State (Turkish: Hilâfet Devleti; German: Kalifatstaat) is a Turkish Islamist group based in Cologne, Germany. It was banned by the German government in 2001.
The Caliphate State was founded in 1984 as the "Union of Islamic Community and Associations" in Cologne by Cemalettin Kaplan after he left a Millî Görüş organization due to ideological disagreements. It started to use the name "Anatolian Federated Islamic State" in 1992 and then changed it to "Caliphate State" in March 1994. It is strongly against the Republic of Turkey and aims to dissolve it.[1] It also views Diyanet and DİTİB as unauthentic and corrupt due to them being part of the Turkish government.[2] With the death of Cemalettin Kaplan in 1995, his son Metin Kaplan took over leadership of the organization. Metin Kaplan, who led the organization during its attempted attack on Turkish Republic Day, was arrested in Germany in 2000, and was extradited to Turkey in 2004. Metin Kaplan plead his innocence despite concurrently praising the attack as a Jihad.[3] Some members of the organization were arrested as a result of the operations carried out by Turkish police units on October 28, 1998 during the attempted Turkish Republic Day attacks.[4][5]
The Caliphate State is a designated terrorist group in Turkey.[6][7]
The group had an estimated 1,300 members at their peak, and its stronghold was in Cologne and other parts of North-Rhine Westphalia.[7]
A weekly newspaper of the organization called Ümmet-i Muhammed was also published.[8]
Ban and legal actions
In 2001 the German government announced a ban of the organisation after it had been on the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution watchlist for many years.[9][10]
Caliphate State challenged this decision in Federal Constitutional Court in 2003, which rejected the application, finding that the militant nature of the group made it unconstitutional and a threat to democracy.[11] Caliphate State appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, however the appeal was dismissed, with the court ruling that "banning of associations...deemed as a concrete and current threat to the principles and fundamental rights of the democratic constitutional order and to the rule of law is legitimate."[12]
The banning order stated that the group "violates the principle of democracy since it demands the primacy of the Sharia law over democratic institutions."[13]
In 2022 the Landeskriminalamt raided 50 locations, seized firearms and €270,000 in cash and arrested three individuals in connection with the activities of the organisation.[14]
- "Karases tutuklandı". Hürriyet (gazete)|Hürriyet. 26 March 1999. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
- "Almanya'da "Kaplancılar"a baskın". Deutsche Welle Türkçe. 28 June 2022. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
- "Hedef Anıtkabir'di". Milliyet: 6. 2 November 1998.
- Önder, Şuşoğlu (3 November 1998). "Kaplan için iade girişimi". Milliyet: 14.
- Terörle Mücadele ve Harekat Dairesi Başkanlığı Archived 31 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- Olivier Roy; Antoine Sfeir (26 September 2007). The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14640-1.
- Yükleyen, Ahmet (2012). Localizing Islam in Europe. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. p. 239.
- "Profile: The Caliph of Cologne". 27 May 2004 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
- "Germany Bans Islamic Extremist Group - 2001-12-12". VOA News. 31 October 2009. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- "High Court Upholds Ban on Islamist Group". DW News. 27 October 2003. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
- "Kalifatstaat v. Germany". Bicocca Law and Pluralism.
- "Three arrests after police action against religious extremist propaganda in Germany". Europol. 29 June 2022.
- Harley, Nicky (29 June 2022). "Arrests as German police carry out raids on banned Islamic extremist group". The National. Retrieved 7 February 2024.