Radical Muslims in the city of Wuppertal in western Germany have begun operating a “Sharia police” force in an attempt to impose Islamic law on local Muslims, the German media reported on the weekend.

About a dozen young Muslim men wearing orange safety vests with the words “Sharia Police” were seen this week outside the city’s discos and pubs and patrolling its streets. According to reports, they were distributing pamphlets and urging Muslims to observe Islamic strictures against alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography and prostitution.

In videos distributed online, the group said it was attempting to implement a “Sharia-Controlled Zone.”

Charges of unlawful assembly and use of uniform in public were brought against 11 members of the group last week, according to a spokeswoman for the Wuppertal police.

A similar phenomenon has been reported in London in recent weeks, with radical Islamists campaigning for the imposition of Sharia law in several areas of the city.

The leader of the German group is a Sven Lau, 33, a Muslim convert and former fireman, who also heads a radical organization named “Invitation to Paradise.”

The group reportedly identifies itself with the Salafi movement, an ultra-conservative stream of Islam with a strong following in the Middle East. Most of the world's Salafis are from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Spiegel Online reported recently that the German police was dealing with two allegations of harassment against the group in the city of Bonn. In one case they allegedly attempted to force a Muslim girl to wear a veil and in the other they beat a youth for drinking alcohol.

Members of the far-right in Wuppertal have responded to the appearance of the Salafists with a group called “City Defense,” dedicated to returning safety and order to the city.

The enmity between the far right and radical Islam poses a danger to the German public as a whole. Four Salafists are due to go on trial in Dusseldorf this week on charges of placing bombs at the Bonn central train station in revenge for the public display of cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed, allegedly by the far-right.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière promised over the weekend that the government would not tolerate the Sharia vigilantes. “No one will be allowed to sully the good name of the German police,” he said in an interview with the German tabloid Bild.

A firebomb was thrown at a synagogue in Wuppertal last July. Members of the city’s Jewish community said at the time that they were scared of the radical Muslims, who, they said, were shouting anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic slogans, including “Jews to the gas.”