From mannequin to Salafist: Hanna Hansen promotes Sharia regulation | EUROtoday

Hardly a day goes by with out Hanna Hansen addressing her followers on Instagram or Tiktok with a message delivered with a delicate smile. “Allah remains, no matter who has gone, no matter who has forgotten you.” Allah be the one who’s nearer to folks than their very own hearts, who is aware of the whole lot that one feels and hears each single whisper. “So come, not to a new religion, a trend, but to the only true path: Islam.” The 41-year-old Hansen, whose actual title is Victoria Stadtlander, is the German capturing star of the Salafist motion.

This is astonishing as a result of women and girls in Salafism must play a subordinate position targeted on their very own household, in accordance with the strictly patriarchal orientation of the ideology. But as male jihadists more and more got here into the main focus of the safety authorities in recent times and have been usually sentenced to jail, the significance of girls within the scene grew.

After the navy collapse of the terrorist group “Islamic State,” a number of dozen girls returned from the conflict zones in Syria and Iraq. Women have lengthy performed a vital position as “ideology producers” within the unfold of Salafist propaganda by way of messenger providers and social media, albeit predominantly within the background, because the North Rhine-Westphalia Office for the Protection of the Constitution put it a while in the past.

Things are completely different for Stadtlander, who was born in Herford, Westphalia. She is presently one of the necessary identification figures within the scene. The undeniable fact that Stadtlander used to steer a glamorous life, which she radically broke with, appears to make her all of the extra credible to her meaning-seeking followers.

Under the stage title Hanna Hansen, Stadtlander has had a number of outstanding careers over the previous twenty years: in 2004 she got here second within the Miss Germany competitors, was an internationally profitable mannequin, and jetted to the style metropolises of Paris, Milan and New York. Today she seems strictly veiled in a hijab, however again then she had many revealing footage and video sequences taken of herself, which her followers can nonetheless discover on-line at this time. She later turned profitable as a DJ for digital music. She had a 3rd spectacular profession as a kickboxer, turning into German champion and world champion.

All that Stadtlander has taken from her dazzling previous life is her stage title and her extensive attain on social media. She is adopted by greater than 500,000 folks on Tiktok and Instagram. In a delicate voice she explains to them why the whole lot that has made up her life to this point is reprehensible. Freedom means “serving the Almighty”, the emancipation of girls results in hell, feminism is a hazard. Her life, which was formed by Western values, was not fulfilling. She solely discovered achievement by way of the Koran, which she interprets in a strictly fundamentalist manner.

Hansen is satisfied of Sharia, Islamic regulation. It propagates strict separation from the “sinful” West, incites in opposition to the “Zionist press” and presents ultra-conservative position fashions as a beautiful various life-style. She warns different girls to not “give away” themselves, however relatively to guard themselves from the male gaze as “diamonds” – i.e. to cowl up. “The headscarf is an obligation for every Muslim,” it says prominently on her Instagram profile.

She commonly posts clips on her channels wherein she explains the Islamic occupation of religion to a brand new “sister”. Hansen can be very lively within the offline world: typically she offers lectures all through Germany a number of occasions a month, invitations folks to “sister meetings” in cafés or mosques or to “picnics” in public parks. She promotes pilgrimages to Mecca and makes use of emotional speeches together with her “Helping Hand” affiliation to not solely elevate donations for Africa, but additionally supposedly to arrange a faculty for women in Afghanistan – the place the ruling Islamist Taliban systematically hold women away from schooling.

Promoting Islam is roofed by the liberty of faith assured by the Basic Law. Freedom of expression additionally protects aberrant and even excessive views held by ultra-religious folks. However, extremist Salafists query the free democratic fundamental order by preaching the precept of “divine sovereignty”, based on which laws can solely come from God, however by no means from the folks.

That’s why the North Rhine-Westphalian and Bavarian Offices for the Protection of the Constitution are additionally monitoring Hanna Hansen, who claims to have transformed to Islam a number of years in the past. Initially, she didn’t reveal any factors of contact with Islamism. “It was only at the beginning of 2024 that she became noticed through references to the scene, which further solidified over the course of the year,” says the North Rhine-Westphalian Office for the Protection of the Constitution. According to the authority, it’s networked with all main nationwide and worldwide figures in Salafism.

It just lately turned recognized that Hansen is now married to the self-proclaimed preacher Sven Lau based on Islamic regulation – as his third spouse. Supposedly there was a spark between the 2 on a visit to Mecca.

Lau is a distinguished instance of how quickly the radicalization of Salafists can happen as a result of jihadism shares the identical ideological foundation with Salafism. The skilled firefighter from Mönchengladbach was, alongside Pierre Vogel, one of many “stars” of the German Salafist scene for a time. He prompted a nationwide stir along with his mosque affiliation “Invitation to Paradise,” which was one of the necessary Salafist networks in Germany till it dissolved in 2011.

And in 2014, Lau was the initiator of the “Sharia Police”: With a gaggle of males he was pals with, Lau went by way of Wuppertal at night time a number of occasions in orange vests to remind younger Muslims of the foundations for dwelling based on Islamic regulation. At this time, the safety authorities now not thought-about Abu Adam, as Lau known as himself, a peaceable a part of the scene. The investigators discovered that, beneath the guise of humanitarian help, he had supported a subgroup of the “Islamic State” terrorist militia with cash and items in type, similar to a discarded emergency ambulance, and that he had incited younger males from his surroundings to depart for the “holy war”. Lau himself went to Syria for brief stays. At the top of July 2017, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court sentenced him to 5 and a half years in jail for supporting a international terrorist group.

He appeared to vary in jail. Lau took half in an exit program, stated he had reformed in an interview and was launched after serving two-thirds of his sentence. After session with consultants and the Federal Prosecutor General, the court docket licensed that he had “clearly distanced himself” from his unique radical Islamic stance.

But as quickly as his five-year probation interval expired in 2024, he’s stated to have grow to be lively once more within the Salafist scene and attended a radical Islamic occasion in Mannheim. Lau himself confirms his departure. As he emphasised in his podcast on Spotify within the spring, he’s nonetheless engaged on his resocialization, however on no account desires to be “de-Islamized,” however as a substitute desires to focus on his household – which now additionally contains Hanna Hansen, the present prime star of the Salafist social media bubble, as a “third wife.”

Hansen himself does not take into account himself radical. In one in all her newest Instagram reels, recorded in a mosque, she quotes the Salafist Pierre Vogel: “I’ll give 1000 euros to whoever finds me something where I spoke in a radical extremist way.” She might signal that instantly. She’s presently having “a bit of difficulty” with the general public, she says, not as pleasant as common. “They’re a bit against me, talking and agitating.” None of that is the reality.

Nevertheless, the “mostly Zionist press – that’s just the way it is – comes from outside and simply pushes me into a corner.” If she is attacked, Hansen switches again to the language of the skilled boxer.