Global Muslim Brotherhood Groups Demand EU Action Against France- Again

An “Inter­na­tion­al Coali­tion Against Islam­o­pho­bia,” con­sist­ing of civ­il soci­ety NGOs and groups tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, has sub­mit­ted a legal com­plaint let­ter to the Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. The let­ter demands polit­i­cal action against the per­ceived dis­crim­i­na­tion of Mus­lims in France, alleg­ing the coun­try exploit­ed the killing of French his­to­ry teacher Samuel Paty for “its own racist, dis­crim­i­na­tive and Islam­o­pho­bic agen­da.” Accord­ing to the let­ter:

March 4, 2021 There is a press­ing need to com­bat the severe reper­cus­sions on Mus­lims because of gov­ern­men­tal Islam­o­pho­bic atti­tudes and recent events in France. (…) We are reach­ing out to you because there is no real or effec­tive rem­e­dy with­in the French legal sys­tem to stop the con­tin­u­a­tion of struc­tur­al and sys­temic Islam­o­pho­bia by the French gov­ern­ment with­in the mean­ings estab­lished by Euro­pean case law.

Read the rest here.

The let­ter claimed France was in vio­la­tion of the Euro­pean Union’s Char­ter of Fun­da­men­tal Rights, object­ing to a new “dis­crim­i­na­to­ry” French Char­ter of Repub­li­can Val­ues that for­bids for­eign inter­fer­ence in Mus­lim groups. The sig­na­to­ries also accused the French admin­is­tra­tion of vio­lat­ing UN statutes per­tain­ing to the free­dom of reli­gion by advo­cat­ing car­i­ca­tures of the Prophet Mohammed and fos­ter­ing anti-Mus­lim hatred in the country.

The 22-page doc­u­ment was sub­mit­ted by a Dutch law firm reg­is­tered at the same Rot­ter­dam address as the Dutch branch of the Europe Trust, a part of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, rep­re­sent­ing the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB), a transna­tion­al Islamist influ­ence oper­a­tion cov­ered by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR). The let­ter was co-signed by a total of 25 inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim and civ­il soci­ety NGOs, includ­ing the fol­low­ing tied to the GMB:

• CAGE, a UK Islam­ic advo­ca­cy group in the UK Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­work tied to extrem­ists and whose senior lead­ers have advo­cat­ed sup­port­ing vio­lent jihad overseas.

• MEND, a UK Islam­ic NGO close to the UK Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• Sticht­ing Cen­trum de Mid­den­weg, a Rot­ter­dam Islam­ic cen­ter that is also locat­ed at the same address as Europe Trust Netherlands.

• Euro­pean Net­work on Reli­gion and Belief, a Euro­pean inter­faith orga­ni­za­tion that appears to include only Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups as Islam­ic members.

• Islam­o­pho­bia Stud­ies Cen­ter, head­ed by Hatem Baz­ian, who is the board chair of the Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine, a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to both the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and to the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US

• Col­lec­tif Con­tre L’islamophobie Aux Pays-Bas, like­ly in some way tied to the French/Belgian group of the same name and with ties to var­i­ous GMB groups.

In Feb­ru­ary 2021, the GIOR report­ed that a part­ly con­gru­ent coali­tion of 36 Euro­pean Islam­ic and human rights NGOs was tak­ing action against France at the UN Human Rights Coun­cil (OHCHR) over its alleged sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion of Mus­lims. Oth­er report­ing by the GIOR about GMB groups try­ing to influ­ence European/French pol­i­tics has included:

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that a coali­tion of Euro­pean civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups had called on EU mem­ber states and insti­tu­tions to adopt polit­i­cal action to mit­i­gate the impact of the COVID-19 cri­sis on Mus­lim communities.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that the Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood had crit­i­cized the French Pres­i­dent for a speech against Islamism.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood had warned Mus­lims against trav­el­ing to France, aid­ing Turk­ish boy­cott efforts.

• A Novem­ber 2020 report that a Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth group held a vir­tu­al anti-Islam­o­pho­bia event with top EU officials.

• A Novem­ber 2020 analy­sis of how for­eign and transna­tion­al actors, includ­ing GMB groups, are influ­enc­ing Islam in France.

• A Novem­ber 2020 exclu­sive report that the daugh­ter of a Dutch Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader ran for the Green Par­ty in the 2021 Dutch Par­lia­men­tary Elections.

• A Jan­u­ary 2021 report that Turk­ish AKP and UK Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers had estab­lished a new cen­ter in London.

• A Jan­u­ary 2021 report that a Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth group praised a Bel­gian deci­sion to allow reli­gious cloth­ing in High­er Edu­ca­tion that they cam­paigned for.

• A March 2021 view­ing rec­om­men­da­tion of a doc­u­men­tary exam­in­ing how a Qatari char­i­ty described as the “reli­gious soft pow­er of Doha” is fund­ing numer­ous Euro­pean Islam­ic Centers.