A French court has upheld the six-month closure of a mosque near Paris in a case that has raised fresh concerns over the state’s policing of Islamic belief and worship.
The Montreuil Administrative Court on Friday rejected an attempt to suspend the July order against the Chanteloup mosque in Aulnay-sous-Bois. The mosque will remain closed until January.
Rafik Chekkat, a human rights lawyer representing the mosque, questioned whether imams in France remained free to recite Islam’s sacred text.
“In France, can an imam still quote the Quran in the mosque where he preaches?” said Chekkat.
Chekkat said the authorities based part of their case on imams “quoting…seven passages from the Quran and references to major works of the Islamic tradition, such as The Garden of the Righteous and The Forty Hadiths.”
The decision follows years of expanding state pressure on Muslim institutions. French authorities closed 22 mosques in 18 months by April 2022, often using intelligence documents whose sources remained hidden.
The government has also dissolved Muslim organisations, including the Collective Against Islamophobia in France and the charity BarakaCity, deepening fears that France is using security laws to restrict Muslims’ freedom of belief
Closing an organization called “collective against islamaphobia” is just outright weird.
Organisations can call themselves anything, without context it’s meaningless to judge.