The university of Kiel in the Northern German State of Schleswig-Holstein said it would revoke the status of the Islamic University Group (IHG) as an official student body.
That came following several problematic incidents during the university’s Islamic Week in May 2025.
The board of directors of the Christian Albrechts University wrote in statement on July 16 that IHG would lose its official status as a university group and no longer be able to use the buildings or the digital infrastructure of the university for its purposes.
Furthermore, the university might take further measures against the group and its leaders including expulsion, bans from the premises and initiating legal proceedings.
The facility’s decision came more than two months after a highly publicised Islamic Week at the institution in early May 2025, which was organised by IHG.
According to local newspaper Kieler Nachrichten witnesses complained about several problematic incidents during the event.
Those included the invitation of noted Austrian Salafist Sertac Odabas as a guest speaker as well as setting up a book stall with Salafist literature. Salafism is a fundamentalist movement within Islam.
State interior minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack said in the State parliament that the German office for protection of the Constitution had been monitoring the Kiel university’s Islamic Week as it had been heavily advertised in German fundamentalist Islam circles.
In addition to apparently questionable content regarding the Islamic Week, there had been complaints about anti-Semitic stickers on laptops used by participants as well as a request for men and women to sit separately during the various speeches and events.
The university started an investigation into the allegations immediately after it had been alerted by the Constitution watchdog on June 19, according to university vice president Catherine Cleophas.
As the facility wrote in its statement, the allegations of misconduct could not be disproven during the investigation. Furthermore, it had become apparent, the statement said, that IHG’s internal processes made it incapable of organising events independently.
The university wrote: “Trust in the university group has been permanently shaken, meaning that its status as a university group will be revoked. Until it is officially revoked the rights of the IHG as a university group are suspended.”
