Beauvais Mosque: the closure for six months confirmed by the courts

The closure is confirmed. This Friday, the administrative court of Amiens rejected an appeal for interim relief requesting the suspension of a prefectural decree closing for six months the Great Mosque of Beauvais (Oise) for sermons by an imam making in particular the apology of armed jihad.

“The prefect of the Oise was able, without committing any errors of fact or of assessment, to estimate that the remarks made” in this place of worship “constituted provocations justifying, with a view to preventing the commission of acts of terrorism, the closure”, considers the judge in summary proceedings in an order issued Friday this day.

The representative of the State had ordered Monday the closure within 48 hours of this mosque – welcoming some 400 faithful – that the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, had accused in mid-December of attacking the “republican model and the France”.

Relying in particular on a “white note” intelligence services, the judge noted that the implicated imam, a young convert trained in Saudi Arabia, “Many times” especially in his sermons “presented armed jihad as a duty and value of Islam”.

Officiating since April, he also “accredited the idea of ​​a hostility of Western societies towards Islam, legitimized disobedience to the laws of the Republic and advocated the superiority of religious rules over them”, adds the judge.

“Principal preacher” of the mosque, it also “made radical remarks inciting hatred and discrimination against certain people”.

The applicant association, “Hope and Fraternity”, which manages the mosque, “has never explicitly condemned the said words “, widely relayed on his Facebook page, continues the judge who also wonders about the effectiveness of the “alleged breach of contractual relations” with the imam. The association may, “when it considers that it has put in place a global system likely to prevent the repetition of the dysfunctions observed”, request the repeal of the closure measure, adds the judge.

Lawyer of the association, Samim Bolaky underlined Thursday during the hearing his desire to “work hand in hand with the prefecture” and in particular the commitment of its managers to no longer distribute content on social networks before the appointment of a moderator. “I repeat here that we strongly condemn anything related to jihadism”, for his part declared his vice-president, Abdelfatah Zouhair. He noted that the interventions of the implicated imam had attracted more faithful young people to the mosque.