Arabic media has reported on this year’s annual conference of the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF), representing the Muslim Brotherhood in France. According to an Arab News report, a top French leader used the occasion to call for a doubling of the number of mosques in the country:
April 5, 2015 Le Bourget, France One of France’s top Muslim leaders has called for the number of mosques to double over the next two years to remedy a shortage of places of worship for the country’s millions of faithful.
Speaking at a weekend gathering of French Islamic organizations, where participants asked for respect in the face of a rise in anti-Muslim attacks, Dalil Boubakeur said the 2,200 mosques in the country did not adequately represent Europe’s largest Muslim community.
‘We need double (that number) within two years,’ the head of the French Muslim Council and rector of the Paris mosque said in the town of Le Bourget near the capital.
‘There are a lot of prayer rooms, of unfinished mosques, and there are a lot of mosques that are not being built,’ he added Saturday at the Muslim gathering, billed as the largest in the Western world.
This annual convention of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), which groups together more than 250 Muslim associations, comes just months after jihadist gunmen killed 17 people in and near Paris.”
Read the rest here.
This years speakers featured the same key Global Muslim Brotherhood leader’s as last year’s UOIF conference including:
- Ahmed Jaballah (former UOIF President, Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe)
- Abdullah Ben Mansour (current UOIF President, Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe)
- Noura Jaballah (President of the European Forum of Muslim Women )
- Tariq Ramadan (grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder)
In April 2014 the GMBDW reported reported that last year’s UOIF annual conference featured antisemitic speeches including the brother of Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan in which he said “All the evil in the world originates from the Jews and the Zionist barbarism.”
The Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF) is widely regarded as representing the Muslim Brotherhood in France. Fouad Alaoui and Lahj Breze took over the leadership of the UOIF in 1993 and were known as the “Bordelaise Clan”, a reference to the French town in which they met as students. They were seen as more moderate than their predecessors Abdallah Ben Mansour and Ahmed Jaballah who both have served as officers of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. Foud Alaoui has also been also a FIOE officer. The two grandsons of the Muslim Brotherhood founder are regular features at the UOIF annual congresses.