(Brussels Times) The Flemish minister for integration and interior, Bart Somers (Open Vld), wants to withdraw official recognition of the Noor-ul-Haram mosque in Antwerp because of internal disagreements that have been going on there for over three years.
Somers wants to pull the mosque’s official status because internal disagreements are “jeopardising the mosque’s functioning,” the minister said, adding that the problems that have arisen with the mosque have nothing to do with extremism.
Opened in 2007, the Noor-ul-Haram mosque of the Pakistani-Indian Antwerp Islamic Association has been dealing with internal disagreements since 2016 when the board of the non-profit organization stopped allowing the imam to enter prayer rooms and instead appointed a new, not officially recognised, imam.
