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PARIS (Reuters) – A French imam said on Monday that the history teacher beheaded for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class was a martyr for free speech, and asked mosques in France to pray for the professor on Friday.
Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Parisian suburb of Drancy Mosque, warned against Islamist extremists and called on parents not to foster hatred of France.
Leaving flowers outside the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine suburb school where the teacher was killed by a suspected 18-year-old Islamist of Chechen origin, Chalghoumi, accompanied by other Muslim leaders, told reporters that it was time for the Muslim community to wake up. the dangers of Islamist extremism.
“(The teacher) is a martyr for freedom of speech, and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilization and respect for others,” said Chalghoumi, who as president of the Conference of Imams of France has regularly called for interfaith tolerance. .
He said Muslim authorities should view the beheading as a call to action.
“Mosque rectors, imams, parents, civil society groups, wake up, your future is at stake,” he said.
He said Islamist extremists in France are well organized and know how to use the legal system and how far they can go.
“We need to end the discourse of victimization. We all have rights in France, like everyone else. Parents must tell their children about the good that exists in this republic,” he said.
A controversial figure in French Islam, Chalghoumi has had run-ins with the Franco-Moroccan Islamist militant Abdelhakim Sefrioui, author of one of the videos in which the father of a school girl accuses teacher Samuel Paty of having insulted Islam.
In 2010, while France was debating legislation to ban veils for Muslim women, Sefrioui had tried to expel Chalghoumi from the Drancy Mosque, and Chalghoumi said he was placed under police protection after receiving death threats.
(Reporting by Antony Paone and Tangi Salaün, written by Geert De Clercq; Edited by Hugh Lawson)
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