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Authorities To Close Muslim School in Bonn
After the King Fahd Academy in Bonn, Germany, came under investigation for alleged ties to the terrorist network al Qaeda, the regional commissioner has threatened to shut down the Saudi Arabian sponsored school. After a documentary aired on German public television a week ago, interest in the activities at the Arab-language King Fahd Academy in Bonn was heightened. According to the show "Panorama," the school had come under investigation for allegedly harboring ties to the terrorist network al Qaeda and other fundamental Muslim groups believed to operate in Germany.

In addition, German security agencies had been reporting a significant influx of radical Islamists to the Bad Godesberg neighborhood in the former German capital where the school is located. School authorities are now alarmed. What initially started out as a recognized alternative for temporary residents in Bonn has now turned into a regular institution for parents who want their children brought up in a strictly Muslim environment. With only one hour of German per week compared to six hours of Arabic and eight hours of religious instruction, the school does little to integrate the children into their German surroundings, where statistics show the majority of them will later reside after graduation. Both educators and security forces are worried that the school is a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism and anti-democratic principles.

According to the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which quotes sources from within the interior ministry, the academy has attracted Islamists from across Germany to Bonn. The magazine reports that several fundamentalists well-known to security authorities, have sent their children to the school and to its affiliated mosque. Among them are Mamoud A, former head of the Islamist group frequented by Christian Ganczarski, the suspected accomplice of the Djerba bomber, and the Egyptian Sayed M., suspected member in the al-Tawhid group with connections to al Qaeda. The Spiegel also reports that investigators have found traces linking the imprisoned al Qaeda financier Mamduh Salim to the school. In addition, the magazine says that the imam at the affiliated mosque has reportedly called upon teachers at the academy to prepare pupils for the "holy war."
I'm consistently amazed that newspapers and magazines can find this sort of things out — when they want to — and the cops can't. Of course, when the cops do find such things out, it's the same newspapers who carry the stories about how the Islamists are being picked on and their rights violated.
As a result of such reports and findings by security investigations, the regional commissioner for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, JÃŒrgen Roters, has called for the closure of the school and the removal of its right to educate. "My goal is to shut the school, but we must do it according to the law," he told the Spiegel. State Premier Peer SteinbrÃŒck endorsed the decision, saying whoever fights against the principles of freedom should not be allowed to educate children. "We will not tolerate intolerance," the state leader was quoted in the same magazine report on Saturday.
This is just the tip of the iceburg:
The Kingdom, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, has established 210 Islamic centers in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia....The Kingdom also established a number of Islamic academies abroad. Among them, are the Islamic Academy in Washington at a cost of 100 million US dollars, where multinational students are taking lessons; King Fahd Academy in London whose students belong to 40 nationalities; King Fahd Academy in Moscow; King Fahd Academy in Bonn, which cost 30 million German Marks.
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-10-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=19754