BEAUVAIS, France: A mosque in the town of Beauvais, in the northern French region of Oise, was shut down for six months following an imam’s radical sermons defending jihad.
Oise’s prefect of police said the sermons referred to jihadist fighters as “heroes” and incited hatred and violence.
Two weeks ago, Interior Minister Grald Darmanin said he was starting a process to close the Great Mosque of Beauvais, 62 miles north of Paris, because the imam was targeting Christians, homosexuals and Jews in his sermons, said Darmanin.
However, a lawyer for the association managing the mosque said the remarks had been “taken out of context”.
The lawyer further said that the imam, who was speaking on a voluntary basis, had been suspended from his duties.
But the interior ministry said the man, who was “presented as an occasional speaker but who, in reality, acts as a regular imam”, had defended “a rigorous practice of Islam” and “its superiority to the laws of the Republic.”
Last year, Darmanin announced a crackdown on mosques with extremist links, saying some could be closed if found to be encouraging “separatism.”
France’s interior ministry said it had investigated some 100 mosques and prayer halls over such extremism in recent months, out of more than 2,620 in France.
