Germany's top security official has banned two publishers for allegedly belonging to a banned Kurdish organization.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Tuesday that he banned the publishers Mesopotamian Verlag und Vertrieb GmbH and the MIR Multimedia GmbH because they support the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK.
The interior minister said in a statement that searches of the two publishing houses in western and northern Germany were underway.
Seehofer said, "It's necessary to push back the PKK because they continue to be active in Germany despite being banned."
He said that the two groups used their earnings solely to support the PKK which was outlawed as a foreign terrorist group in Germany in 1993.