Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Danish mosque doubles down on Isis support

Danish mosque doubles down on Isis support
Broadcaster DR spent six months inside the controversial Aarhus mosque. Photo: DR1

Danish mosque doubles down on Isis support

http://www.thelocal.dk/20150106/danish-mosque-doubles-down-on-isis-support

Published: 06 Jan 2015 20:59 GMT+01:00
Updated: 06 Jan 2015 21:05 GMT+01:00
The Aarhus mosque that made international headlines in September by declaring its support for the terrorist group Isis has now doubled down on its statements. 
In a documentary from broadcaster DR that aired on Tuesday night, leaders of the Grimhøj Mosque said that they want to see an Islamic caliphate established, that they don’t believe in democracy and that a Danish convert who carried out a suicide bomb attack in Iraq is a hero. 
“We want the Islamic State come out on top. We want an Islamic state in the world,” the mosque’s chairman, Oussama El-Saadi, said in the DR programme. 
El-Saadi also said that he views Denmark’s participation in the US-led battle against Syria as a direct affront not only to his mosque but to all Muslims. 
“The war is against Islam,” he said. 
Another mosque leader also makes his disdain for democracy clear in the documentary. 
“I can be integrated without being a fan of democracy. That’s my choice. You can certainly live here as a Muslim without going out and voting and participating things that don’t benefit the Muslims in Denmark,” Youssef Loubani, the chairman of the mosque’s board, said.  
In the documentary, El-Saadi also lends his support to Victor Kristensen, a Danish man who converted to Islam and is suspected of having carried out a suicide bomb attack in Iraq that killed numerous people. 
“I am expressing my right to free speech in order to give my opinion. And I think that if he did it for his beliefs and for Allah’s sake then he is a martyr and a hero,” El-Saadi said.
Grimhøj Mosque has long been accused of promoting an extremist interpretation of Islam. In July, a video emerged of Abu Bilal Ismail, an imam at the mosque, calling on God to “destroy the Zionist Jews”. 
East Jutland Police also estimate that of the at least 110 individuals who have left Denmark to fight in Syria, around two dozen of them come from Grimhøj Mosque. 
In the DR programme, the mosque leaders denied that its members were radicalized. 
A clip from the documentary, in which Middle East expert Naser Khader confronts the leadership of Grimhøj Mosque, can be seen below.


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