Free Republic

Charges of unlawful assembly and use of uniform in public were brought against 11 members of a group trying to enforce aspects of strict Islamic Sharia law in the North Rhine-Westphalia city, a spokeswoman for the Wuppertal police told The Local. Officers stopped the 11-man group on the street on Wednesday. Some were wearing orange vests bearing the words 'Shariah Police', in violation of federal German law, the spokeswoman said. The group has been stopping young people at local drinking and gambling establishments and urging them to abstain from activities deemed to be ungodly according to Islam. The Wednesday incident...

Police in Moenchengladbach have arrested infamous Salafist Sven Lau on suspicion of supporting a terrorist group. [...] In a statement, the prosecutors said that Lau, 35, had been arrested on suspicion of acting on behalf of "Jaish al-mujahirin wa-l-ansar" (army of emigrants and helpers, or Jamwa). That could make him culpable of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, a serious crime that carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in jail. ...

State prosecutors in the Ruhr city of Wuppertal said on Tuesday that they have brought charges against notorious Islamic fundamentalist Sven Lau, who was behind a short-lived “Sharia police” vigilante force in the city. Lau, 34, is accused—with nine others—of infractions against the law on freedom of assembly over the group of high-vis-vest-wearing Islamists who declared that they would patrol the streets to police morals last September. […] “Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said at the time. The western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is widely regarded as a hotspot for fundamentalist...