France shuts mosque over radical nature of Imam’s preaching

Team Udayavani, Dec 29, 2021, 12:39 PM IST

Image: The New York Times

France has ordered the closure of a mosque for the next six months over the radical nature of its imam’s preaching. The sermons allegedly incite hatred, violence and “defend jihad.”

The move on the mosque, which has a congregation of about 400, comes two weeks after Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he had triggered the procedure to close the site because the imam there “is targeting Christians, homosexuals and Jews” in his sermons. This, the minister said, was “unacceptable.”

According to a media report, the authorities say the imam, who the association claims had preached only occasionally and had now been suspended, was in fact acting as a regular Imam and had termed jihad, a term for war against the enemies of Islam, a “duty,” and referred to jihadist fighters as “heroes”

He had also labeled non-Muslims as “enemies,” it says.

With AFP inputs