Saudi Funded Mosque Opened in Nice 2 Weeks Before Deadly Bastille Attack. by15 July 2016
An Islamic Mosque, funded and owned by a hard-line, “fundamentalist”
Saudi Arabian cleric, opened in Nice just two weeks before the Southern French
city was struck by a deadly terror attack.
(Nice) Town Mayor Christian Estrosi had fought a bitter legal battle with the
French state in an
attempt to stop it opening, claiming the owner, Saudi Minister of Islamic
Affairs Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh (pictured left) “advocates Sharia
law and destroyed all the churches on the Arabian Peninsula.”
“Our intelligence agencies are worried about this place of worship,” the
mayor said, before warned about “unregulated foreign funding,” according to French news site RTL.
Mr. Estrosi, mayor since 2008, argued that the project, which was initiated under
his predecessor in 2002, was unauthorised. He took central government
representative Prefect Adolphe Colrat to
court but did not succeed.
Mr. Colrat accused Mr.
Estrosi, who is a member of France’s centre-right The Republicans Party, of
“feeding populism” and scapegoating the entire Muslim community to gain votes,
AFP reported.
The mosque opened at the beginning of this month, and was described as
“a real joy” by Ouassini Mebarek, a lawyer and head of a local religious
association.
“But there is no smug triumphalism,” he told AFP. “This is recognition of the law, and a right to
freely practise one’s religion in France in accordance with the values of
French Republic”.
Cleric
Saleh bin Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh is perceived to be a strict adherent of Wahhabism – the dominant strain
of Islam in Saudi Arabi and the state religion – which has been described,
variously, as “ultraconservative”, “austere”, “fundamentalist” and even
“extremist”.
The revivalist movement is closely related to the Salafism practices by
Islamic State (IS) terrorists, with the two terms – Salafi and Wahhabi – often
considered synonymous and interchangeable.
Last night, at least 84 people died in the city, including children,
after a lorry slammed through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, France’s
national day.
Identification papers found in the truck point to a 31-year-old Nice
resident that held duel French and Tunisian citizenship. French President
François Hollande declared it an “undeniable” terrorist attack.
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