European Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group Accuses French President Of “Unilateral Assault On Muslims, Islam And The Prophet Muhammad”

A group of 28 Euro­pean Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions has pub­lished an open let­ter to French Pres­i­dent Emman­u­al Macron to crit­i­ciz­ing what they call his “uni­lat­er­al assault on Mus­lims, Islam and the Prophet Muham­mad.” Accord­ing to the let­ter:

As organ­i­sa­tions that have spent decades build­ing peace and bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er across Europe from var­i­ous back­grounds, of all faiths and none, we would like to ask you and your gov­ern­ment to recon­sid­er the uni­lat­er­al assault on Mus­lims, Islam and the Prophet Muham­mad (peace be upon him). The hor­rif­ic mur­der of M. Samuel Paty and the heinous attack on a place of wor­ship in Nice drew con­dem­na­tion and empa­thy from peo­ple all over the world. This is a moment in which French cit­i­zens looked up to you to pro­vide strong moral lead­er­ship. Yet, unfor­tu­nate­ly, there has been nei­ther wis­dom nor moral lead­er­ship in your response. Malign­ing Islam and your own Mus­lim cit­i­zens, clos­ing main­stream mosques, Mus­lim and human rights organ­i­sa­tions, and using this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stir up fur­ther hatred, has giv­en fur­ther encour­age­ment to racists and vio­lent extrem­ists. Your own words and actions go against the prin­ci­ple of laïc­ité, as well as the French Con­sti­tu­tion of 1958, which states that “all cit­i­zens regard­less of their ori­gin, race or reli­gion are treat­ed as equals before the law and respect­ing all reli­gious beliefs [or lack thereof]”.

Read the rest here.

While the let­ter sig­na­to­ries appear to include a wide range of Euro­pean Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions, in fact, they are most­ly mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions of the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Organ­i­sa­tions (FEMYSO), the youth wing of the Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, and most have their own ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Promi­nent exam­ples include:

• Fed­er­a­tion of Stu­dent Islam­ic Soci­eties (FOSIS) (UK)
• Norges Unge Mus­limer (Nor­way)
• Gio­vani Musul­mani d’I­talia (Italy)
• Asso­ci­a­tion for Cul­ture, Edu­ca­tion, and Sport (AKOS) {Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Britain Youth (MABY) (UK)
• Social Union “All-Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion Alraid” (Ukraine)
• Etu­di­ants Musul­mans de France (France)
• Mus­lim Asso­ci­a­tion of Ire­land Youth (Ire­land)

Fol­low­ing the behead­ing of a French teacher who had shown car­i­ca­tures of the Prophet Muhammed to his class in Octo­ber, French Pres­i­dent Emman­u­al Macron Macron announced plans to tack­le what he called “Islam­ic sep­a­ratism.” The plan includes leg­is­la­tion requir­ing pri­vate schools to agree to teach sec­u­lar val­ues in an effort to com­bat the favor­ing of reli­gious rules over repub­li­can laws among the country’s grow­ing Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion. Oth­er pro­pos­als include stricter con­trol over for­eign fund­ing of mosques as well as require­ments that imams are trained and cer­ti­fied in France. More­over, France ordered a crack­down on groups accused of rad­i­cal­ism, car­ry­ing out dozens of raids and tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting down mosques. Fol­low­ing these actions, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that, as part of this crack­down, the French inte­ri­or min­is­ter indi­cat­ed he wants to dis­solve the Col­lec­tif Con­tre l’Islamophobie en France, an Islamist influ­ence oper­a­tion with mul­ti­ple rela­tion­ships to orga­ni­za­tions that are part of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe, a transna­tion­al Islamist net­work cov­ered by the GIOR.

FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, for­mer­ly known as the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), known to rep­re­sent the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. One of the impor­tant lead­ers of FEMYSO over the years has been Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at, and in recent times, its lead­er­ship has been drawn from the fam­i­ly of impor­tant Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers. Almost all of the FEMYSO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are also tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al level.

The GIOR report­ed ear­li­er this week that Kau­thar Bouchal­likht, the FEMYSO Vice-Chair­man and a can­di­date for the March 2021 Dutch par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, is like­ly the daugh­ter of one of the most impor­tant lead­ers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the Netherlands.