Islam versus Europe

The imam Hassen Chalghoumi, whose association represents 80 imams in France, unambiguously condemns the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, and he reproaches the West for being “naive and too indulgent vis-à-vis the Islamists”.

Interviewed by France-Soir, in the opinion of the imam of Drancy the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo must sound the alarm: “I say to the people of France, to Europe and the West in general, but I say also to journalists: Wake-up! Stop supporting political Islam. Do not be naive. These people are intolerant. They threaten even the Muslims they consider too moderate.”

"I know the double language of the Islamists"

Hassen Chalghoumi is worred about the “innocence” of westerners faced with the success of the Islamist movements: “What is happening today in the Arab world is very serious. When the Islamist party Ennahda comes to power in Tunisia, when forty per cent of the Muslims in France voted for it, I am devastated. I know the double language of the Islamists. I am a Muslim, I am a Tunisian… these people want to install Sharia and everyone is rejoicing.”

According to the imam Hassen Chalghoumi, “Europe must wake up. It cannot give support to Islamist parties in Muslim countries. On the contrary, it should only support democratic parties”. The French-Tunisian imam declares “the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, which in the beginning were noble and democratic, are being reclaimed by the Islamists.”

This imam, who describes himself as “a man on the ground confronting reality”, reproaches western politicians and media with “giving too much of a platform to the Islamists, of being too indulgent to the Muslim Brotherhood”: “the journalists don’t want to see,” he says. “But this attack against Charlie Hebdo shows that there are people who do not accept others’ points of view at all. They want to impose their laws even in France. They are fanatics. For me, all points of view should be expressed, and the response is not violence but dialogue or recourse to justice.”

"Why has France played Al Qaeda’s game in Libya?”

The imam of Drancy does not understand why “the Americans are rejoicing about the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, why France has played Al Qaeda’s game in Libya, why several European countries have sheltered Islamist leaders who, today, are returning to their countries with lots of money, financed by Qatar especially, to take ownership of the Arab revolutions.”

According to him, “an Islamist party should never be supported, because if the Islamists win in Tunisia, in Libya and in Egypt, the entire Arab world will change radically, and we will pay a very high price.”

Source: France-Soir

Sheik Yermami has some interesting details on this imam's history here.