BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom
The leader of an organization of people of Turkish origin in Bulgaria has said that 60 foundations associated with Islamic fundamentalism are currently active in Bulgaria and that they are backed by associates of Usamah Bin-Ladin, among others. The chief mufti of Bulgaria dismissed the allegations, saying that Bulgarian Muslims never had been and never would be fundamentalists. The following is the text of a report in English by the Bulgarian news agency BTA web site:
Sofia, 24 September: Sixty foundations associated with Islamic fundamentalism currently operate in Bulgaria, Ashim Hadzhiasan, president of the Straight Path for Bulgarian Nationals of Turkish Origin Foundation, told a news conference here on Monday.
Later in the day, Chief Mufti Selim Mekhmed said "such a thing cannot exist in Bulgaria. Bulgarian Muslims have never been and will never be fundamentalists."
Shaykh Abdul Kemal of Saudi Arabia, uncle of alleged terrorist Usamah Bin-Ladin, has been to Bulgaria, Hadzhiasan said.
"Before 1999 Shaykh Abdul Kemal came for recreation at the Pavel Banya Spa [in central Bulgaria] after putting up for some time at Sofia Princess Hotel. During his visit the shaykh met with members of various foundations in Bulgaria financed by fundamentalist circles based in various countries, which brainwash young Muslims under cover of religious training," Hadzhiasan said.
About 60 such foundations have been registered in Bulgaria, Hadzhiasan said and listed the Bulgarian branch of Irshad, which, he said, has sent 74 schoolchildren of the eighth and eleventh grade to Saudi Arabia for training; the Nedouae organization of Velingrad, Southwestern Bulgaria, headed by Algerian Jemal Hudas; Taiba, initially led by Jordanian Abdurahman Takan, who was expelled from the country in 1997 and was succeeded by Hussein Odeh Hussein; and Neoua, headed by Mouafak from the village of Surnitsa, the Velingrad area.
"Behind these foundations are Bin-Ladin's people and members of the fundamentalist Islamic organizations Ahab al-Aleini al-Islami, Hezbollah, and Muslim Brothers," Hadzhiasan said.
The present senior members of the Bulgarian Chief Mufti's Office know that training in fundamental Islam has been carried out in Bulgaria, he said. The courses are based on a trend of Islam not popular in Bulgaria, he said.
Old imams are replaced by new ones trained in the Shari'ah (the Islamic Law) in Arab countries. Fundamentalist indoctrination has been the main function of religious schools, Hadzhiasan said. Such schools have been established in contravention of Bulgaria's laws on religions and education. The movement started in the Rhodope Mountains in southern Bulgaria, and now there are 3,000 such schools nationwide, including in northwestern and eastern Bulgaria, he said.
The senior members of the Chief Mufti's Office welcome religious fundamentalists and plead on their behalf with the Directorate of Religious Faiths to make arrangements for the issuance of residence certificates, he said. Some of the fundamentalists even enter into proxy marriages to legalize their residence.
"This is pure imagination," the chief mufti told BTA, commenting on Hadzhiasan's allegations. "Such a thing cannot exist in Bulgaria. These people are impudent and are taking advantage of the aftermath of the attacks in the USA to discredit the chief mufti's office and to force a split in the Muslim community."
"Bulgarian Muslims have never been and will never be fundamentalists. They profess traditional moderate Islam. We will make sure to bar alien radical beliefs and ideas," Mekhmed added.
Ashim Hadzhiasan is probably on of the very few Bulgarians who has met Usamah Bin-Ladin. Hadzhiasan told the news conference that in 1994 he went to Sudan thanks to arrangements by the president of the East European Islamic Centre. Hadzhiasan said he was taken to a fundamentalist base, where he met Bin-Ladin. That was also the time when he first saw the so called desert warriors, whom Bin-Ladin then described as "horror for the Americans."
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