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Madrid imam hails preacher curbs
By Danny Wood: BBC correspondent in Madrid Moneir Mahmoud, the religious leader of Madridâs main mosque, says he supports a proposal to restrict what Muslim clerics can preach. Interior Minister José Antonio Alonso wants the law to control what can be said to congregations in Spainâs mosques and churches. Spainâs recently elected Socialist government is looking for new ways to combat militant Islamic extremism. An extremist group is the main suspect in the Madrid bombings of 11 March. Mr Alonso has proposed establishing a register to control religious activities, both Muslim and Roman Catholic. Mr Alonso says the register would identify who was responsible for leading worship and the type of worship to take place. The religious leader of Madridâs mosque has welcomed the idea. In an interview published in El Mundo newspaper, Mr Mahmoud says it would be good for the government to know what certain clerics were saying to their congregations. The leader of Spainâs biggest mosque says there are extremists preaching to the Islamic community and he believes the government needs to stop them. âReturn to censorshipâ But attempts to limit religious freedom strike a sensitive chord in Spain. In addition to the countryâs more than half a million practising Muslims, 30 million Spaniards identify themselves as Roman Catholic. The opposition Popular Party and leading Roman Catholic bishops are against any attempts to curtail religious freedom. The archbishop of Seville, Carlos Amigo, says the minister of the interiorâs proposals are a return to the days of censorship under the Franco dictatorship. This is exactly the sort of thing I have been predicting. While fairly easy to foresee, I do not detect any signs that the Muslim world has yet to comprehend what is in store. Some people here are taxed beyond their abilities to reconcile my recognition of the many moderate Moslems that certainly exist and my own advocacy of imposing a credible deterrent against Islamist terror. While I freely recognize the existence of moderate Muslims, such a constituency in no way negates the dire need for suppressing their more fanatic segments. Global Islam can only look forward to more of Spainâs measures should they fail in making sincere and genuinely determined inroads against the radicals in their midst. I abhor censorship but refuse to countenance terror even less. When Islam begins to understand this equation, perhaps they will finally start to thrust such violent jihadists from their ranks. Until then, the actions of a virulent few will justify retaliation against the many, exactly as I have outlined elsewhere. At this point, I am obliged to wonder just how long Spain will be spared further attacks now that they have "violated" whatever feeble truce it is that they brokered. Iâll give them a few weeks at best. Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-05 |
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