Three mosques shut down on radicalism grounds
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced on Wednesday that a mosque reportedly supporting terror was closed down near Paris.
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It’s the third mosque to be shut down on the grounds of extremism in a week and since the state of emergency was declared in France after the Paris attacks last month.
A police operation in the mosque at Lagny-sur-Marne, east of Paris, on Wednesday led to 22 people being banned from leaving France and nine others were assigned to residence.
“Police searches turned up a 9mm calibre pistol, a hidden hard drive, documents and files on Jihad and a life-insurance policy subscribed in 2012,” said Cazeneuve.
“The Council of Ministers will now dissolve these three pseudo-cultural organisations which used clandestine prayers rooms on the premises,” added Cazeneuve.
Two other mosques were shut down last week on the grounds they were spreading radicalism. One, in the city of Lyon, central eastern France, and another in Gennevilliers, near Paris.
“Measures to close down mosques on the grounds of radicalisation (…) have never been made by any previous government,” Cazeneuve said.
According to daily newspaper Le Parisien, the former president of the mosque at Lagny-sur-Marne was known for being a radical preacher, and had fled to Egypt in 2014 with dozens of his followers.
He is accused of being involved in the indoctrination and the recruitment for Jihad in Syria.
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