The State Council confirmed on Wednesday November 25 the dissolution of the NGO BarakaCity and the temporary closure of the Pantin mosque.
The Council of State confirmed on Wednesday the dissolution of the NGO BarakaCity and the temporary closure of the Pantin mosque, considering like the government that they had disseminated messages inciting hatred or even terrorist acts.
Lawyers for the NGO and the mosque denounced “unjust” decisions, accusing the highest administrative court of having followed “without batting an eyelid” the arguments of the state when, according to them, the latter did not bring ” no proof “of their proximity to radical Islamism. The government ordered the closure for six months of the Pantin mosque (Seine-Saint-Denis) on October 21 and dissolved BarakaCity a week later following the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty by a young radicalized Islamist.
The Pantin mosque was in turmoil for having broadcast, on October 9, the video of a father of a student of the college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) indignant after a course on freedom of expression of Samuel Paty who had shown the caricatures of Muhammad to his students there. This video had been at the origin of the gear which led to the assassination of the professor of history and geography on October 16.
The Muslim Federation of Pantin, which manages the place of worship, then seized the Council of State. During the hearing Monday, its president M’hammed Henniche had estimated to have given “pledges” in order to obtain a faster reopening. But the judge of the Conseil d’Etat judged in particular that “the remarks made by the officials of the Great Mosque of Pantin and the ideas or theories disseminated within it constitute a provocation, in connection with the risk of committing acts terrorism, violence, hatred or discrimination “, justifying its administrative closure. However, he specified that the federation may request its reopening “when it considers that it has taken measures” to prevent further “dysfunctions”.
Lawyers for the federation, William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, said they were amazed to hear that “the mosque would have become a gathering place” for the “radical Islamic movement” when it had until then always “been erected in example by the public authorities “. They also deplored that the “arguments and guarantees provided”, including the departure of the Imam, were not taken into account.
Source: The Blend
