Mosques closed with secretive unchallengeable evidence

• Published date: 11 April 2022
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)

FOR three years, Karim Daoud ran the mosque in this small town in northwest France. He also coached children’s football and for more than two decades has worked for the local council’s youth services

Daoud was among those who visited a nearby Catholic church to express solidarity following a deadly Islamist extremist attack at a church in southern France in 2020.

Last October, the interior ministry’s local office gave the 46-year old a medal to recognise his long service as a public employee.

Days later, the ministry office closed the mosque for six months, saying it was promoting ‘‘a radical practice of Islam’’ and ‘‘cultivating a feeling of hate towards France,’’ according to the closure order.

But the mosque’s representatives — who deny the allegations — say the government has provided scant public evidence about the grounds for that decision.

It’s one of a growing number of mosques closed by authorities using an array of powers that rights activists, international organisations — including the United Nations — and members of the Muslim community say give authorities carte blanche to close down places of worship without proper scrutiny and with procedures so opaque the case can’t be overturned.

‘‘It’s Kafkaesque,’’ said Fionnuala Ni Aolain, a UN special rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism, of the legal procedures used in such cases, which can include evidence where the source is not identified.

‘‘The flirtation with secretive evidence is in itself worrying,’’ but it also breached provisions in international treaties relating to the right to a fair trial and equality before the law, she said.

The interior ministry said the government has strengthened the ability of authorities to prevent and combat Islamist terrorism over the past five years and that all the legal measures adopted were ‘‘done in full respect of the rule of law’’. French President Emmanuel Macron (44), who came to power five years ago on a centrist platform, has toughened his stance on law and order, a hot-button issue in a country that experienced a series of deadly extremist attacks in recent years.

He has implemented a raft of laws and measures aimed, he says, at tackling violent extremism and Islamist radicals who challenge France’s secular values.

But critics say he has given outsized powers to security forces and chipped away at democratic protections, leaving Muslims vulnerable to abuse.

Many Muslims now feel France, home to one of the largest...