by Juliette Jabkhiro
ALLONNES, Sarthe (Reuters) – For three years, Karim Daoud, 46, was head of the mosque in Allonnes, a small town in Sarthe near Le Mans. He also coaches a football team there, and has worked for more than twenty years in the youth service of the town hall.
Last October, the Sarthe prefecture awarded him a medal of honor to reward his seniority and his dedication to serving local communities.
A few days later, she closed the mosque for a period of six months, explaining in her decree that a “radical practice of Islam” was observed there and that “a feeling of hatred towards France”.
Representatives of the mosque, who reject these accusations, believe that the authorities have provided little evidence to support their decision.
Organizations for the defense of human rights, international institutions such as the UN and members of the Muslim community have denounced since the beginning of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term French “arbitrariness”, with “opaque” procedures that are difficult to contest in justice.
“It’s Kafkaesque,” judge Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, United Nations special rapporteur for the protection of human rights while countering terrorism. “The flirtation with the secrecy of evidence is in itself worrying but it also violates international treaties” such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Asked about this point, the French presidency declined to comment.
Emmanuel Macron had a series of measures and laws adopted during his five-year term intended, according to him, to fight against radical Islamism. But some criticize him for giving too much power to the security services and removing democratic safeguards, further exposing Muslims to abuse.
Many Muslims feel that France has become a more hostile country. Data from the Ministry of the Interior shows a sharp increase in discrimination against Muslims in 2021, while it has fallen for other religions.
The Interior Ministry told Reuters that all measures taken during the five-year term to combat Islamic terrorism had been taken “in accordance with the rule of law”. The Sarthe prefecture did not wish to answer questions from Reuters.
French authorities have closed 22 mosques in the past 18 months, according to Interior Ministry data – a rising figure according to an authoritative source.
The ministry specifies that it has also checked 90 mosques out of the approximately 2,500 Muslim places of worship in France.
The stated objective is to fight against “Islamist separatism” through an arsenal of surveillance and sanction measures such as the “republican commitment contract” for associations requesting public funds, the “deferred secularism”, or the deployment departmental cells for the fight against Islamism and community withdrawal (CLIR).
The Ministry of the Interior ensures that detailed evidence has been added to the proceedings against the Allonnes mosque. The Le Mans prosecutor’s office has also initiated investigations to determine whether members or leaders of the associations managing the Allonnes mosque have committed acts of “apology for terrorism and provocation to commit terrorist acts”. So far, no one has been charged, prosecutors said.
Karim Daoud assures that he has no link, direct or indirect, with terrorist activities.
The closure is for him “an injustice” and “a big disappointment” in view of the local involvement of the community. A whole repression that would forget the social dimension of the problem.
Me Nabila Asmane, who represents the leaders of the mosque, told Reuters that the interior ministry had not provided sufficient evidence, that the file was based on false allegations and that the intelligence services had not not seriously investigated.
“It’s not the lawyers who failed, it’s justice,” she says.
The Council of State confirmed in November the closure of the mosque. In January, the government announced the dissolution of the associations governing the mosque. An appeal procedure is in progress.
Administrative closures like that of the Allonnes mosque are temporary. But some mosques are not reopening, according to human rights activists and the interior ministry.
The decree closing the Allonnes mosque ends on April 25, the day after the second round of the presidential election. Muslims from the city are trying to form a new association to take over the place.
The fierce fight against “separatism”, a controversial theme of the presidential campaign which feeds the programs of the far right, is to be included in the balance sheet of the outgoing president.
In October 2017, Parliament passed the law strengthening internal security and the fight against terrorism (SILT), which enshrines in common law certain provisions of the state of emergency introduced at the end of 2015 after the deadly attacks of January and November 2015 .
At the time of the vote, Emmanuel Macron had designated “jihadist terrorism” as the greatest security threat to France.
Under the SILT Act, the Home Office has the power to close places of worship for six months if they are suspected of spreading hatred or inciting violence, condoning or inciting terrorism. Places of worship can appeal these closures to administrative courts. During an administrative procedure, it is very rare that witnesses are called to appear.
In Allonnes, the mosque has been located for ten years in the cultural space Yvon Luby, a modern building without charm. Some 250 faithful prayed there regularly, according to Karim Daoud.
On October 11, the prefecture notified the leaders of the mosque of its intention to close the place, which it did two weeks later.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, made the announcement himself on Twitter on October 26: “The sermons preached in this mosque legitimized in particular the recourse to armed jihad while cultivating a feeling of hatred towards France.”
The mosque’s leaders are appealing the closure decision. The government’s file is detailed in two documents of 20 pages in total, a “white note”, which is added to the proceedings on the evening of October 28, the day before the hearing at the Nantes court, according to the date of receipt entered on the document.
A white note is a document written by the intelligence services, which served to justify the closure of the mosque of Allonnes. These notes do not specify when or by whom they were written, or where the information they contain comes from.
The French intelligence memo, which is not public but seen by Reuters, accuses four people associated with the mosque, including Daoud and another leader, of showing support between September 2020 and April 2021 to two terrorist attacks committed in France.
The note also mentions five books found at the mosque which it describes as “radical”. According to Daoud Riffi, who teaches Islamology at Sciences Po Lille, four of them are works easily accessible online and in specialized bookstores. The last, “Riyad as-Salihin” or “The Gardens of the Virtuous”, dates from the 13th century and appears in the catalog of the National Library of France.
The document also accuses the imams of the mosque of having said in their sermons that France is a depraved country which will be punished by Allah and of having glorified armed jihad. She also accuses worshipers of the mosque of having called to take up arms – without identifying by whom these remarks were heard.
According to Karim Daoud, the “white note” is based on a misinterpretation of the term “jihad”, which can mean armed jihad, but in most cases is used in its common sense of “jihad al-akbar”, a spiritual fight and non-violent against oneself.
Daoud filed a complaint against X for “slanderous denunciation” with the Le Mans prosecutor’s office in December.
Grégoire Cador, a four-year Allonnes parish priest whose church is about a 10-minute walk from the mosque, said he did not recognize the mosque’s leaders from the description. done. “These accusations totally surprise me,” said Father Cador, who left Allonnes last year.
Reuters interviewed more than a dozen mosque worshipers and other Allon residents, all of whom said mosque leaders and imams were tolerant and never used hate speech.
During the hearing at the Nantes administrative court on October 29, Nabila Asmane notably argued that the closure undermined the freedom of worship of Muslims in Allonnes.
The judge dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the charges were sufficiently specific and detailed.
The leaders of the mosque then seize the highest French administrative court, the Council of State. During a hearing on November 26, which Reuters attended, the director of civil liberties and legal affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, Pascale Leglise, had defended “the word of the State” as sufficient proof.
“We are in the most total helplessness. Because the ‘white notes’ sometimes include real falsifications of the truth, which cannot be disputed”, had replied Me William Bourdon, who also defends the leaders of the mosque. .
Since the end of October, the Allonnes mosque has been empty, the closing order taped to the front door.
Maryam Gasnier, 63, said she went every Friday to the mosque, located three minutes from her apartment, to pray and share a meal with other women. She says she is now deprived of this place of socialization.
Najia Zeroual says her daughters, aged 12 and 14, used to take Arabic lessons twice a week at the mosque, but that activity stopped. “If there are people who professed jihadist ideas, we must deal with them, but we must not penalize young people,” she said.
If the mosque reopens, it will be without Karim Daoud.
His personal assets have been frozen since October by government decision, on the same basis as the closure of the mosque. He still does the same job, but has no direct access to his bank account. Bills are paid directly from his account, and for all other family expenses, he says he has to make do with 500 euros a month in cash.
“Everything is done to humiliate us.”
(Report Juliette Jabkhiro, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)