European Union Funds Anti-Islamophobia Programs Co-Organized By Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group

Fon­dazione L’Albero del­la Vita, an Ital­ian NGO, report­ed in Sep­tem­ber that as part of its Youth Empow­er­ment Sup­port For Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ties (YES) pro­gram, it host­ed the first-ever inter­na­tion­al youth forum against Islam­o­pho­bia in Rome:

Sep­tem­ber 2021 Fon­dazione L’Albero del­la Vita, Le Reseau, and Prog­et­to Aisha are hap­py to host the first ever INTERNATIONAL YOUTH FORUM AGAINST ISLAMOPHOBIA. The event will be held in Rome, but online par­tic­i­pa­tion will also be avail­able.   The event will last three days, from the 24th to the 26th of Sep­tem­ber 2021. The Forum will be a space and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for young peo­ple to dis­cuss and con­crete­ly think how to build a more inclu­sive and diverse soci­ety, free from stereo­types and dis­crim­i­na­tion. A Youth Man­i­festo against Islam­o­pho­bia will also be drawn up and approved, in order to pro­mote young people’s views on this sen­si­tive and top­i­cal issue.  Ital­ian and Euo­pean insti­tu­tions will be present at the event, which will present a diverse pan­el of speak­ers and activ­i­ties, includ­ing work­shops and debates.

Read the rest here.

Accord­ing to the pro­gram, the event not only fea­tured rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Euro­pean and Ital­ian insti­tu­tions but also sev­er­al keynote speak­ers from orga­ni­za­tions linked to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe, including:

• Ahmed Abdel Aziz, board mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM)

• Abdel­rah­man Rizk, pres­i­dent of the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO)

• Nourhene Mah­mou­di, Cam­paign and Advo­ca­cy offi­cer at FEMYSO

• Yas­sine Lafram, pres­i­dent of the Ital­ian CEM mem­ber Unione delle Comu­nità Islamiche in Italia

• Ebrahim Ali, described as pres­i­dent of the Ital­ian FEMYSO mem­ber Gio­vani Musul­mani d’I­talia (GMI)

• Mari­am El Hay­at, PR offi­cer at GMI

Accord­ing to its web­site, the YES pro­gram and a sim­i­lar anti-Islam­o­pho­bia pro­gram called MEET are imple­ment­ed by nine Euro­pean part­ners, includ­ing FEMYSO, and fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union’s Rights, Equal­i­ty and Cit­i­zen­ship Pro­gramme. Accord­ing to the Euro­pean Commission’s Finan­cial Trans­paren­cy Sys­tem, the YES pro­gram received €107,855 and the MEET pro­gram €443,002 in sub­si­dies between Sep­tem­ber 2019 — Sep­tem­ber 2021. FEMYSO received at least €14,398 for its par­tic­i­pa­tion in the MEET pro­gram, accord­ing to the same source.

Accord­ing to its web­site, YES “is a project thought to empow­er Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties and name­ly young peo­ple, to make them aware of their rights.” The MEET project “wants to con­tribute to the pre­ven­tion of islam­o­pho­bia and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls” and seeks to set up “local obser­va­to­ries on Islamophobia.”

The Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM), pre­vi­ous­ly known as The Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), describes itself as a “cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tion, with hun­dreds of mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions spread across 28 Euro­pean States, all sub­scrib­ing to a com­mon belief in a method­ol­o­gy based on mod­er­a­tion and bal­ance, which rep­re­sents the tol­er­ance of Islam.”  In real­i­ty, the CEM is an umbrel­la group that com­pris­es the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe, and its cur­rent Pres­i­dent is Abdul­lah Ben­man­sour, a long-time leader of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in France. The CEM has a head­quar­ters office in Brus­sels and has had some suc­cess in posi­tion­ing itself as a “dia­log part­ner” for the EU and oth­er impor­tant insti­tu­tions. The CEM has also spawned numer­ous oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Euro­pean Coun­cil for Fat­wa and Research and FEMYSO.

The Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO) is the youth/student arm of the CEM and is reg­is­tered as an NGO in Brus­sels. FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and a host of oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al lev­els. 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, includ­ing the daugh­ter of Rachid Ghannouchi.