An about-face. From Expatica, with thanks to Anthony:
BERLIN – The German government – in a policy shift – said Wednesday it will seek to ban a planned Islamic conference in Berlin billed by organisers as being aimed at “American and Zionist Nazism.”
“The Federal Interior Ministry will do everything possible to see that this congress does not take place,” said Rainer Lingenthal, chief spokesman for German Interior Minister, Otto Schily.
Lingenthal declined to say what measures were planned to prevent the meeting from taking place.
Initially the federal government said it was up to the city of Berlin to decide whether to ban the convention – but local officials declined to take action.
The “First Arab, Islamic Congress in Europe”, scheduled for 1 to 3 October in the German capital, has been slammed by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, an international Jewish human rights group, which wants the meeting banned.
Islamic congress organisers declare in their manifesto that people invited to take part are those wanting to make “an intensive contribution … to the world’s resistance movement against the American and Zionist Nazism.”