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Mauritania Detains More Imams, Bans Mosque Sermons
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Taya’s
regime stepped up a crackdown on imams and Islamists across the
country.
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By
Sayed Ahmed Ould Baba, IOL Correspondent
NOUAKCHOTT,
May 17, 2005 (IslalmOnline.net) – Mauritanian authorities have
stepped up their crackdown on mosque imams and Islamists for the third
consecutive week as a new law banned sermons in mosques expect on
Friday.
“Ten
imams were arrested by security forces on Monday, May 16, as part of a
continuing crackdown on mosques,” sources close to Mauritanian
Islamists told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, May 17.
Sheikh
Mohamed Al-Amin Ould Al-Hasan, one of the leading Islamic figures in
the West African country, was among those arrested, they added.
This
came one day after the arrest of several mosque imams on charges of
receiving money from Al-Qaeda to propagate its ideas.
Moreover,
a cohort of Muslim women activists were detained by security forces
across the country.
Sources
told IOL at least 60 people have been arrested by security forces in
the ongoing crackdown.
The
majority of Mauritanians are infuriated by the regime’s close links
with Israel, which still occupied Arab lands in Palestine, Syria and
Lebanon.
In
1999, Mauritania became the third Arab country to establish full
diplomatic ties with Israel after Egypt and Jordan.
Israeli
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom’s brief visit to the capital
Nouakchott last week sparked demonstrations in which police fired
teargas at hundreds of angry protestors.
Sermons
Banned
Adding
insult to the injury, the government enacted on Monday a new law
banning lectures and sermons, except on Friday, in the country's
mosques on claims of containing what it calls chaos in the places of
worship.
The
legislation also bans the sale and circulation of tapes featuring
sermons or lectures.
This
came only a week after the Mauritanian police accused imams of using
mosques to recruit young people and propagate extremist ideas.
Several
parties at home and abroad have voiced deep concerns at the
government’s crackdown on Islamists.
Former
president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla has warned that the
government’s campaign on Islamists and mosques would aggravate the
situation in the West African country.
Earlier
this week, the International Crisis Group warned that the Mauritanian
authorities are playing a dangerous game to stifle Islamist opponents
by denouncing them as “terrorists”.
“The
government is now in danger of creating the very phenomenon it is
warning of by tarring the whole wider Islamic revival in the country
with the ‘terrorist’ tag,” the Brussels-based think-tank said in
a report on May 12.
It
further accused President Maaouya Ould Sidi’ Ahmed Taya of using the
so-called “war on terror” to justify a clampdown on opponents and
to try to ingratiate his government with Western powers, particularly
Washington.
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