European Council president says Europe must fight extremist ideologies.
European Council President Charles Michel on Monday called for the creation of a European institute to train imams as a way to curb hate speech and prevent terrorism.
Speaking in Vienna, where he paid tribute to the victims of last week’s terrorist attack, Michel said he believes a school for imams could help “to fight against extremist ideologies, violent extremism, messages of hatred, messages of rejection that feed these terrorist actions.”
“It is important to be firm about this,” Michel said at a press conference with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. “I think, for example, that we should have debates at the European level in connection with the idea that was raised some time ago of setting up a European institute for the training of imams, to ensure that this message of tolerance and openness can be conveyed at the European level.”
He added that the goal must be to create acceptance for “the primacy of civil law” and to forge “mutual respect” for common values and democracy.
Similar ideas of training imams to have European values have already been floated in Germany and France amid fears of foreign influence. However, there are questions about how such a model would work in practice as religious authorities could be reluctant about being trained by secular governments.
Michel’s proposal was immediately met with skepticism.
“The approach of governments controlling religious discourse through imams is a tried and tested failure in Muslim-majority countries,” said Rashad Ali, a senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who specializes in de-radicalization. “It is one thing to break political ties to foreign states and another thing altogether in creating a European imam, and creating a brand of Islam which is neither necessary for the majority nor religiously authentic.”
The proposal comes ahead of a videoconference on Tuesday between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as well as Michel and Kurz, who plan to discuss European answers to the threat of terrorism.
The European Council president also demanded that the EU crack down on foreign funding for religious organizations “that mobilize to stir up hatred.” In addition, EU legislative proposals expected next month should contribute to removing radical messages on the internet, Michel said.
“It’s very shocking for our citizens to see internet messages of glorification or calls of hatred that are kept for days, for weeks … we must be able to remove these contents very quickly, which is not always the case today,” Michel said.
Kurz said the EU needs to wage “a concerted fight against political Islam, against the ideology behind this aggression on our society and Western way of life.” He lent support to Michel’s proposal, saying: “It does not help to fight only against terrorists and to start only with violence itself, but we have to react much earlier when it comes to stopping payment flows, stopping hate speech and fighting this ideology.”
Kurz also demanded that there should be better surveillance of “foreign terrorist fighters” who have returned from warzones to Europe.
“We have to be aware that we have thousands of foreign terrorist fighters living in our societies in Europe,” Kurz said. “In other words, people who have already made the conscious decision to fight, rape or murder for the [Islamic State] or other terrorist organizations elsewhere in the world.”
He added: “These are ticking time bombs, a massive security threat for us in the European Union.”
Source: Politico
Comments