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Paris– French authorities announced Tuesday that they will close a mosque near Paris as part of a campaign targeting the Islamic trend, in the context of the terrorist operation in which a history teacher showed his students insulting cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
The mosque, located in the densely populated suburb of Bantan in northeast Paris, shared a video clip on its Facebook page denouncing Professor Samuel Patti’s involvement in free speech days before his murder on Friday, a source close to confirmed. the investigation.
The Interior Ministry confirmed that the mosque, which is frequented by about 1,500 faithful, will close its doors from Wednesday night for six months.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanan, who pledged “to wage war against the enemies of the republic” after the professor’s beheading, called on local authorities to implement the closure.
Darmanan promised that the government will also tighten the screws on charities suspected of being linked to Islamist networks.
Since Monday, French police have launched a campaign against Islamic extremist networks in the country as authorities prepare to remove 231 foreigners from the government’s watch list on suspicion of adopting extremist religious beliefs, after they a Russian Muslim militant beheaded a teacher.
The massacre of a French history professor in a suburb of the capital, Paris, shocked France, mainly because it coincides at a time when authorities are concerned about the growth of fundamentalist Islam in the country.
Patty, 47, was attacked on her way home from her school in Conflans-Saint-Honorine, 40 km northwest of Paris.
Photos of the professor and a letter confessing to the crime were found on the phone of 18-year-old Chechen killer Abdullah Anzurov, and images of the professor’s beheaded body were also posted on Twitter.
The operation was preceded by an online incitement campaign against the teacher and the school led by the father of one of the students, who accused the teacher of spreading “pornography” by showing the students drawings showing the Messenger naked.
The school said Patti gave Muslim students the option of leaving the classroom, but the lesson nonetheless sparked outrage.
Darmanan accused the student’s father and an extremist Islamic activist of “issuing a clear fatwa” against the teacher.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across the country Sunday in honor of the teacher and in defense of freedom of expression.
The teacher’s murder was reminiscent of the 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people, including painters, due to the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Teachers in France have long expressed concern about the reflection of tension around identity and religion in classrooms.
On Monday, several Muslim clergymen gathered outside the Patti school to offer their condolences.
“It is very important that we come here and express our condolences and say that what happened here does not express Islam. This crime was committed by criminals who have nothing to do with Islam,” said Kimado Gassama, an imam of a mosque in Paris.
The level of tension at the political level also increased with the announcement by French President Emmanuel Macron of an “action plan” against “entities, associations or people close to extremist circles” that spread calls to hatred.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who could face Macron in the 2022 presidential election, called for the enactment of a “law of war” and the immediate suspension of immigration.
A march is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in honor of Patti, and Macron will participate in a memorial service hosted by the professor’s family on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Paris said they had opened an investigation into a pro-Nazi French website that had reposted Patty’s body image, which the killer posted on Twitter.
