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“We apologize,” Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of the Drancy mosque, was quoted as saying AFP, Tuesday (20/10/2020). He called on mosques in France to pray for this teacher named Samuel Paty. (Read: Teacher Beheaded for Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad Trigger Big Demonstrations in France)
Hassen Chalghoumi warned against the dangers of Islamic extremism and asked parents not to cultivate hatred for France.
He laid flowers outside the school accompanied by other Muslim leaders. He told reporters that it was time for the Muslim community to wake up from the dangers of Islamic extremism.
For Hassen Chalghoumi, the teacher who was beheaded by the Chechen man was a martyr. (Read: Teacher Beheaded, France Will Expel 231 Radical Foreigners)
“This (teacher) is a martyr for freedom of expression, and a wise man who has taught tolerance, civilization and respect for others,” said Chalghoumi, who serves as president of the French Imams Conference. He regularly calls for interfaith tolerance.
He said Muslim authorities should see beheading as a call to action. “Chancellors of mosques, imams, parents, civil society groups, wake up, your future is at stake,” he said.
He said Islamic extremists in France were well organized and knew how to use the legal system and how far they could go.
“We need to end the discourse victim-isation. We all have rights in France, like everyone else. Parents should inform their children about the good that exists in this republic, “he said. (Also read: Teacher’s Tail Beheaded for Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, 4 Students Detained)
A controversial figure in French Islam, Chalghoumi has clashed with Franco-Moroccan Islamic militant Abdelhakim Sefrioui, author of one video in which the father of a girl at school accuses her teacher; Samuel Paty, has insulted Islam. The cartoon that Paty shows her students in class is a cartoon by Charlie Hebdo magazine that sparked outrage in the Muslim community and a massacre at the magazine’s offices in 2015.
In 2010, as France debated a law banning the veil for Muslim women, Sefrioui had tried to get Chalghoumi out of the Drancy mosque, and Chalghoumi said she was placed under police protection after receiving death threats.
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