(Euronews) A mosque in northern France has been ordered shut for six months for “inciting violence.”
The prefecture of the Oise département said the large mosque in Beauvais was closed for “inciting hatred,” “violence” and “apology of jihad.”
France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin announced on December 14 that he had “set in motion” the procedure for the administrative closure of this mosque because of “unacceptable” preachings “against Christians, homosexuals and Jews.”
The lawyer for the “Espoir et Fraternité” (“Hope and Fraternity”) NGO, which runs the mosque, Samim Bolaky, told AFP that he had appealed to the administrative court in Amiens against this decision.
Bolaky said the authorities were targeting “certain remarks made during preaching by one of the mosque’s imams — who has since been suspended — who was speaking on a voluntary basis.”
