Det er Aljazeera som melder dette. Imam Hassan El Alaoui har en sentral rolle i blant annet å utpeke regionale og lokale imamer.
France is likely to close up to 160 mosques in the coming months as part of a nationwide police operation under the state of emergency which allows places of worship that promote radical views to be shut down, one of the country’s chief imams has said.
Following news that three mosques have already been closed since the November 13 attacks on the capital, Hassan El Alaoui, who is in charge of nominating regional and local Muslim imams and mediating between the imams and prison officials, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that more were set to be shut.
«According to official figures and our discussions with the interior ministry, between 100 and 160 more mosques will be closed because they are run illegally without proper licenses, they preach hatred, or use takfiri speech,» he said.
Takfiris are classified as Muslims who accuse others of the same faith of apostasy, an act which has become a sectarian slur.
«This kind of speech shouldn’t even be allowed in Islamic countries, let alone secure countries like France,» El Alaoui, who became the first Muslim prison chaplain-general in 2005, said.
The recent mosque closures, he added, were made under «a legal act that the authorities have» and must have happened because «of some illegal things that they found».
Unntakstilstanden i Frankrike har nå vart i nesten ni måneder.
Ifølge innenriksministeren Bernard Cazeneuve har Frankrike stengt tre moskeer de siste to ukene. Det skal aldri tidligere ha skjedd at Frankrike har stengt gudshus.
Politiet har funnet både våpen og jihadmaterial knyttet til raid mot moskeer. 22 personer er ilagt utreiseforbud, mens ni personer er satt i husarrest. I tillegg er det foretatt raid mot 2,235 hjem og bygninger, 232 personer er satt i varetekt, 334 våpen er konfiskert, av dem 34 klassifisert som krigsvåpen.