DAR AL HARB - NETHERLANDS: "PROPERLY TRAINED" IMAMS MAY BECOME SCARCE IN THE NETHERLANDS BECAUSE OF STRICT ADMISSIONS ON FOREIGN IMAMS

Muslim leaders
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday January 18, 2007

Amsterdam- Muslim leaders in the Netherlands expressedconcern Thursday that strict conditions imposed on the admission offoreign clerics could lead to mosques without a properly trained imamand create breeding grounds for extremism.

The Association of Imams in the Netherlands (VIN) said in responseto a report in the daily Telegraaf newspaper that Muslim religious leaders were leaving for more accommodating countries like Belgiumand Spain.

VIN deputy chairman Mohamed Ousalah expressed concern, suggestingthat mosques without a spiritual leader could fall into the hands ofextremists.

"What can you expect from inexperienced leaders? How do they advise Muslims in their quest, their religious questions and on their relations with Dutch society," he queried.

"It could go in any direction." Ousalah said, describing thesituation in Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, where up to 40 percent of mosques had lost their imams, as "critical."

Nasr Joemman, secretary of the CMO contact group between Muslimsand the Dutch authorities, said the problem affected primarilymosques serving the 325,000-strong Moroccan community.

The Surinamese community had its own training programme for imams,and the Turkish community could draw on imams from Turkey in terms of a bilateral agreement, he said.

Driss el-Boujoufi, vice-chairman of the Union of Moroccan MuslimOrgnizations in the Netherland, said up to 30 of the 150 Moroccanmosques in the country currently had no permanent imam.

He warned that the situation would deteriorate if the Dutch authorities did not change their policies.

El-Boujoufi noted that Dutch rules required a vacancy to beregistered with the Labour Ministry.

If it remained unfilled after six months, the mosque could seek a suitable candidate abroad.The candidate then had to undergo a culture and language course to become a Dutch resident, he said, adding that the entire process could take more than a year.

Concern over Islamic extremism, particularly in the Moroccan community, has risen since the November 2004 murder of filmmaker Theovan Gogh.

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Either you let us have all the imams we want, whenever we want them or we are going to go Banleiues (reference to the riots & car burnings in suburbs of Paris) on you...

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