The Berlin state government said on Monday it had banned an Arab-Islamic Congress due to be held in the German capital next month to rally support for Iraqi and Palestinian "resistance and intifada".
Henrike Morgenstern, a spokeswoman for the Berlin interior ministry, said an advertisement for the event published in English on the Internet expressed approval for suicide attacks against Israel and the United States.
"That significantly oversteps the limit of what can be allowed in terms of opinion-forming," she said.
The organisers said they would respect the ban, but added they had never shown approval of suicide attacks, either on the Internet or in interviews or talks with the authorities.
"I have ended my work and cancelled the room," said Gabriel Daher, spokesman for the event. Asked whether potential participants would still show up in Berlin he said: "I don't think so."
Daher said the organisers had drawn a clear line between resistance and terrorist attacks, calling the latter wrong.
On the Web site http://www.anamoqawem.org he issued a detailed apology to Arabs, Muslims and the German authorities - as well as to his own family and children.
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