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"We want to invite prominent Muslim scholars but are always confronted with a long blacklist of people we can not invite," Breze said. |
PARIS — Several prominent Muslim intellectuals are increasingly being barred from addressing international gatherings and delivering lectures across Europe on the grounds of extremism or anti-Semitism.
"We face many hurdles while planning for our annual Bourget conference," Lhaj Thami Breze, Chairman of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), told IslamOnline.net.
"We want to invite prominent Muslim scholars from around the world but are always confronted with a long blacklist of people we can not invite," he added.
The four-day Bourget conference, the biggest Muslim convention in Europe, attracted last year more than 150,000 Muslims from across the continent.
"Many moderate Muslims from the East and West, including prominent European thinkers, are banned from attending," Breze said.
He cited Swiss-based prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and his brother Hany, the director of the Islamic Center in Geneva.
Hany was not allowed to deliver a series of lectures at the Lyon-based Al-Shatabi center.
The banning is not restricted to France.
Ramadan was banned from delivering a lecture at Brussels Free University on February 22 after a smear campaign by the pro-Israel lobby.
Female Muslim thinker Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman for the Moroccan Justice and Charity Party, and Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannoushi, the leader of the Tunisian Islamic Renaissance Movement, were also banned from addressing a seminar on "Islam and democracy" in Napoli, Italy.
The ban followed a campaign launched by Jewish groups in Italy, accusing the pair of inciting hatred and violence and refusing to recognize Israel.
In 2005, the pro-Israel lobby in Britain campaigned to ban Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the president of the Dublin-based International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), from entering the country.
But the campaign failed after Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, threatened to take the British government to court if it banned Qaradawi.
Backfire
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"Hushing moderates fans extremism and prevents the Europeans from having a moderate Muslim partner," Mestiri said
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The ban is seen by Muslim organizations and activists as a demonstration of the double-standards Europe applies to Muslims.
"The principles of equality and free expression vanish in thin air when it comes to Muslims," Mohamed Al-Mestiri, the head of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, told IOL.
"National security is always used as a pretext to curtail the rights of Muslims," he insisted.
"What is more bewildering is that radicals are usually given the floor and media people rush to interview them."
Breze, the chairman of France's UOIF, agreed.
"Europe should live up to its free expression. Otherwise, we will lose confidence in these values."
Al-Mestiri warned that the practice only plays into the hands of extremists.
"Hushing moderates fans extremism and prevents the Europeans from having a moderate Muslim partner."
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