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Yemen Tightens Grip on Mosques
The Yemeni government is to take control over some of the countryâs mosques in an effort to deny extremists a preaching platform, a government official said yesterday. The Ministry of Endowment and Guidance plans to prevent preachers who belong to Islamic political parties from holding sway over mosques, the ministryâs undersecretary Yahya Al-Najjar said. Scholars who show loyalty to political parties, particularly the opposition Islah party, would not be allowed to use mosques to spread their extremist beliefs, Al-Najjar said in remarks published by a website run by the ruling GPC party. âPluralism is in politics not mosques. It is against the law to use mosques for partisan or political purposes,â he said. Al-Najjar, however, said the ministry would keep a tight rein on only 28,000 of the countryâs 70,000 mosques. Posted by: Fred 2004-06-08 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=35000 |