State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi has withdrawn the right of residency of the Chief Imam of a mosque in Brussels, according to the Brussels Times.
As per the newspaper, the Imam, Mohamed Toujgani, had his residence revoked in October last year with Mahdi claiming evidence of a major threat to national security. Toujgani is the Imam of Belgium’s largest mosque, the Al Khalil mosque in the Molenbeek area of Brussels.
‘We want to send out a signal: those who sow hatred, divide our society and threaten our security, are not welcome in our country – not today, but also not in the years to come. In the past, we have given too much leeway to radical preachers. This man was probably the most influential preacher in Belgium. With this decision we make a difference’, Mahdi was quoted as saying.
Mahdi based his decision on information from the security agencies and said he did not take it lightly. Specifics are yet to be determined.
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Toujgani, a Moroccan national, has been ordered to leave the country and will be barred from returning for the next ten years. The Imam had been under fire for some time before the ban. A ten-year-old video of him calling for the burning of Jews surfaced in 2019.
Molenbeek, a Brussels neighbourhood, has a large proportion of Muslim immigrants. It has produced a number of terrorists who have carried out attacks in Europe, notably Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind the Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Paris in November 2015.
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