Bulgarian Muslims: Anti-Islam Hit Is Interior Minister's PR

Politics » DOMESTIC | October 7, 2010, Thursday // 09:45
Bulgarian Muslims: Anti-Islam Hit Is Interior Minister's PR: Bulgarian Muslims: Anti-Islam Hit Is Interior Minister's PR Blagoevgrad Regional Mufti, Aydan Mohamed, demands apologies from Bulgarian authorities over the raid of an Imam’s house in southern Bulgaria. Photo by DarikNews

Bulgarian Imams are staging a national meeting to issue a joint declaration asking the authorities and Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, for official apologies.

The statement was made Thursday in a TV interview by the Blagoevgrad Regional Mufti, Aydan Mohamed in the village of Lazhnitsa, just one day after the Bulgarian National Agency for State Security (DANS), the anti-mafia police, and the Prosecutor's Office carried out a special operation against the alleged illegal Bulgarian branch of the extremist Al Waqf al Islami Foundaton.

The operation stirred strong tensions in Lazhnitsa prompting many of the villagers to gather in front of the raided house of Imam, Mohamed Kamber, as a sign of support.

Kamber told the TV reporter he is outraged and offended and will seek justice after the authorities complete the probe of the seized documents. The police informs they found a large number of propaganda brochures with radical Islam content, promoting religious hate and change of the Bulgarian constitution while, according to Kamber, these were 1 000-years-old Islam books about purity, prayer, marriage and divorce.

The Imam reiterated there is no terrorism in Islam which forbids killing innocent victims, adding the fact that some use the religion as excuse for terrorist attacks somewhere around the globe should not reflect on the entire Muslim community.

Kamber is a native from Lazhnitsa and has been an Imam since 2008. He had studied Muslim religion in Saudi Arabia after winning a competition with the Chief Mufti's Office.

"I was born here, this is my homeland, and would not live anywhere else. What is happening makes me believe this is the work of people who do not want peace in Bulgaria and shatters my trust in the authorities," Kamber stated.

Local Muslims say the Bulgarian authorities large-scale hit on alleged radical Islam cells in the southern regions is another PR action of Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who wants to show the western world the country is dealing with terrorism Others put the blame on circles behind Nedim Gendzhev, who was reinstated at the post of Chief Mufti by the Supreme Administrative Court, stirring outrage among the Muslim community in Bulgaria.

The Al Waqf al Islami Foundation was established in the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands and it is believed to be financed by extremist Muslim circles from Saudi Arabia.

Its headquarters were closed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, when the Dutch authorities discovered ties between the Foundation and the perpetrators of the attacks.

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Tags: Aydan Mohamed, radical Islam, terrorist attacks, mufti, imam, Eindhoven, Al Waqf al Islami Foundation, DANS, Lazhnitsa, Boris Velchev, Ivan Kostov, Nedim Gendzhev

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