Czech Muslims Protest against Mosque Raids
The raids took place last week during Friday midday prayers and resulted in the arrest of 20 Muslims, including a book publisher who had a book translated into Czech.
The publisher, who had been accused of promoting hate speech over the book called 'The Fundamentals of Tawheed' by Jamaican-born UK-based imam Bilal Philips, faces up to 10 years in prison.
Police enforced their presence around the protesters, who were demanding answers over the manner in which the raids were conducted, with Muneeb Al Rawi, chairman of the Union of Muslim Communities in the Czech Republic (UMO), calling it “entirely inappropriate” and “utterly uneducated.”
“We would like to express our indignation with the way the intervention [was carried out], for the time, the place,” Al Rawi told The Prague Post.
He also expressed his fears for the Muslim minority in the Czech Republic, which might be endangered following the raids.
“We warn against the rise of extremism and anti-Muslim sentiment that such behavior may cause and we are concerned about the wave of Islamophobic comments which appeared after the police intervention,” he said.
The Muslim population of the Czech Republic is estimated between 15,000 and 20,000. Islam has been recognized as an official religion in the country since 2004.
Source: World Bulletin
