"We must do so in a way that meets rule-of-law standards," said Roters

HAMBURG, October 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – German officals are mulling closure of a Saudi-funded private school in the suburbs of Bonn, claiming it is a breeding ground for Muslim "radicals," a German news weekly revealed in a story set for publication Monday, October 13.

They argue that King Fahd Academy, which was opened in 1995 with top German officials present, fall short of meeting Germany's education system, by devoting eight periods a week to Qur'an studies and only four to mathematics, Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Der Spiegel as saying.

"My objective is to close the school down. But we must do so in a way that meets rule-of-law standards," the weekly reported quoting Juergen Roters, the Cologne district prefect.

In order to do so, German officials stopped issuing new enrollment permissions for the Muslim academy.

Under education laws in North Rhine Westphalia, the state where Bonn is located, children must have a permission to attend the academy instead of a public school.

The school has 470 pupils enrolled, just under 200 of whom are German nationals.

Der Spiegel said Roters is supported by state premier Peer Steinbrueck, adding that German Chancellor Gerhanrd Schroeder, who has visited Saudi Arabia last week, had raised the issue with officials in Riyadh.

Anti-terrorist police are inspecting the school management and textbooks, putting both parents and teachers under close scrutiny.

The German news weekly quoted the Academy's German spokesman, Andrea Bellinghausen, as saying that a religion teacher, who was secretly filmed by German news cameraman as he called for jihad, had been sacked.

The academy comprises a school catering for 500 students and a Mosque which can accommodate 700 worshippers.

Germany’s anti-crime police launched a sweeping campaign in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, targeting some 95,271 of the Muslim community in the country - estimated at four million people - but fell short of providing solid evidence on terror charges against any of them.

The Rasterfahndung campaign further placed a freeze on deposits and bank accounts of some of them.

German authorities also fired some 86 Muslims from their sensitive jobs in nuclear stations and airports under the pretext of suspected "extremist-leaning thinking."

Germany’s annual report on civil liberties, released in May and drawn up by seven human rights and legal organizations, warned of violating the privacy of the German society.

It cited some privacy violations by the German authorities in the name of stepping up security measures.