Belgian Anti-Racism NGO Provides Member Groups With 200,000 Euros in “Resilience” Funding; Beneficiaries Include Muslim Brotherhood Groups

The Euro­pean Net­work Against Racism (ENAR) is report­ing it has award­ed 200,000 euros in “resilience” fund­ing to 20 of its mem­ber groups, who it says are defend­ing the human rights of racial­ized com­mu­ni­ties in Europe. Sev­er­al ben­e­fi­cia­ries are tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB). Accord­ing to a post on the ENAR website:

May 11, 2022 ENAR has issued its first grants under the Empow­er­ment and Resilience Fund with the aim of sup­port­ing anti-racist organ­i­sa­tions and devel­op­ing a vibrant and strong anti-racist Net­work across Europe. Through the Fund, ENAR has grant­ed a total of €191.825 to sup­port 20 Net­work mem­ber organ­i­sa­tions who defend the human rights of racialised com­mu­ni­ties in Europe and work towards a more inclu­sive Europe for all.

Read the rest here.

In its state­ment, ENAR says the fund­ing was made pos­si­ble due to the sup­port of exter­nal donors and that it was grant­ed through ENAR’s own Empow­er­ment and Resilience Fund. Accord­ing to ENAR, the fund pro­vides direct finan­cial sup­port towards the oper­at­ing costs of ben­e­fi­cia­ries, strength­en­ing the capac­i­ty of grass­roots anti-racist civ­il soci­ety groups in the ENAR net­work. ENAR also said an addi­tion­al call was fore­seen in 2022 to expand the num­ber of ben­e­fi­cia­ries across Europe.

The ben­e­fi­cia­ries, sole­ly anti-racist and/or migrant civ­il soci­ety groups active in anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion work, includ­ed sev­er­al NGOs tied to the GMB in Europe:

• Euro­pean Net­work on Reli­gion and Belief (ENORB) a Euro­pean inter­faith orga­ni­za­tion that includes only Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups as Islam­ic mem­bers. Its found­ing mem­bers include the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion and the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, the lead­ing umbrel­la group rep­re­sent­ing the GMB in Europe.

• Euro­pean Forum of Mus­lim Women, a Mus­lim wom­en’s advo­ca­cy group close­ly affil­i­at­ed with the CEM and whose cur­rent lead­er­ship con­tin­ues to show many links to the GMB.

• Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO), the youth/student arm of the CEM.

ENAR is an asso­ci­a­tion of over 150 NGOs href=” https://www.enar-eu.org/Members”>describing itself as “the voice of the anti-racist move­ment in Europe” and has met with high-lev­el EU offi­cials, includ­ing the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Coor­di­na­tor on Com­bat­ing Anti-Mus­lim Hatred. ENAR also has its own ties to the GMB in Europe. For­mer ENAR Direc­tor Michaël Priv­ot, who in 2008 open­ly acknowl­edged that he was a mem­ber of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, has served in lead­ing posi­tions in sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, includ­ing as a board mem­ber of FEMYSO. In 2019, ENAR was one of 21 sig­na­to­ries to an open let­ter pub­lished by a self-described “infor­mal Euro­pean coali­tion against Islam­o­pho­bia,” which was com­prised main­ly of orga­ni­za­tions and one indi­vid­ual tied to the GMB in Europe.

ENAR is fea­tured promi­nent­ly in an August 2022 GIOR report titled “Europe and the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Part 2: Lob­by­ing & Polit­i­cal Impacts,” which ana­lyzes ENAR’s lob­by­ing efforts in exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive bod­ies of the Euro­pean Union.