Today, news agencies and online news sources distributed reports stating that Frankfurt-based Turkish organization called Internationale Humanitären Hilfsorganisation has been banned from operating in Germany by the country’s Interior Affairs Ministry.

Germany-based Internationale Humanitären Hilfsorganisation has no relation to us, that is to IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Turkey.

In various European countries such as Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, several organizations exist and operate in the same field as us under similar names and logos with our organization. Those organizations carry no actual links to our foundation. IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation only works with partner organizations everywhere it goes to.

Organizations that use a similar name, abbreviation and/or logo with our foundation are doing so without our permission. We, as IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, do not think this is right, as it leads to confusion and misunderstanding. However, there is no way to avoid such confusion other than advising against such actions, as our organization and others are bound by two different legal systems in separate countries.

As IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, in order to document the fact that we have no links to the Germany-based organizations and to legally establish our organization’s registered name in court, we filed a lawsuit in Fatih 2^nd Civil Court on the 17^th of October in 2008.

In court’s decision, it said “As for the date of the lawsuit filed by the plaintiff, none action or operation by the German-based IHH Foundation existed in any way related to the plaintiff, therefore necessary conditions for a court case could not be established. For the stated reasons, in order to meet the requirements of promptness and economic efficiency, no liability was assigned for court hearings and case has been dismissed.

Moreover, on the 20^th of January in 2010, we declared to the general public that we have no links to the Germany-based aid organizations by written announcements in Milli Gazete, Zaman, Turkiye and Yenisafak newspapers’ European editions. The same announcement was also posted on our official website’s main page on the 3^rd of March in 2009 with the title of “Announcement For Europe”.

IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation was established in 1992 in Freiburg, Germany, by a group of volunteers and opinion leaders who delivered humanitarian aid to Bosnia during the war. After that date, all of our activities both in Turkey and in Germany was run under the name of that organization.

After Turkey-based IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation’s establishment in 1995, the previous Germany-based IHH ceased its activities and was shut down in 1996.

Later on in 1997, a completely different group of people who had never taken part in the previous Germany-based original IHH, established a separate organization called Internationale Humanitären Hilfsorganisation (International Humanitarian Aid Organization) in Frankfurt, Germany. There is no organic link between our foundation and such organizations that were established after our organization.