Paris Grand Mosque wall and door have been defaced by anti-Islam offensive graffiti, drawing condemnations from Muslim community and French officials, a few hours after a shooting spree spread panic across the French capital.
“We deeply deplore the racist violence and hostility that have been shown against the Mosque of Paris, the iconic institution of Islam in France,” Dalil Boubakeur, Grand Mosque President, told UPI on Thursday, November 21.
Last Monday, anonymous attackers tagged Paris Grand Mosque with racist, anti-Islam graffiti.
After the attack, the mosque president filed a complaint with the police commissioner at Paris.
The president of the French National Observatory against Islamophobia, Abdallah Zekri, has also deemed the attack as an ‘outrageous’ act.
Zekri himself was a target of anti-Islam attack last October when his home was sprayed by offensive and neo-Nazi statements.
According to the French law, racial attacks and religious defamation crimes are punished by sentencing to a one- year prison and a $60,000 fine.
The mosque attack came on the same day of a shooting spree at the prominent daily newspaper Liberation, a shooting outside French bank Societe Generale and a brief hostage-taking.
On Wednesday, police announced the arrest of Abdelhakim Dekhar in a car in an underground car park at Bois-Colombes in the Paris suburb of Hauts-de-Seine.
The Grand Mosque attack is not the first to target Muslims this month.
Islamophopia was on the rise in France in November, where several Islamic sites were under extremists attacks.
Earlier this month, pig’s skull was thrown into the future Turkish cultural center in Amboise.
Another site of a future mosque in the northern French city of Hazebrouck, was also attacked where two pig heads were found at the site.
Unacceptable
The racist graffiti was immediately condemned by French politicians, including Paris mayor.
“Tags that are abusive … are both irresponsible and unacceptable,” Bertrand Delanoe, Paris Mayor, was quoted by Islamophobia Watch.
“By targeting the Muslims of Paris, those who have expressed them are attacking the Muslims of France and betraying the Republican past that binds us all.
“On behalf of the people of Paris and in my own name, I want to assure the rector of the Mosque of Paris, as well as the Muslim community, of my support and my friendship,” Delanoeadded.
Paris Grand Mosque used to be an icon of religious tolerance in France.
During last October’s `Eid Al-Adha, French Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, visited the mosque to condemn Islamophobic acts.
Ayrault assured Muslims’ rights for freedom of religion and worship, underlining the importance of the accordance of faiths practices with the laws of the Republic, secularism and beliefs.
Attacks against mosques had almost doubled to 40 in 2012 compared with 2011, the CCIF said.
Last June, a pregnant Muslim woman lost her baby after being attacked by two skinheads for donning Islamic face-veil in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil.
The attack came after a veiled Muslim woman in Argenteuil was targeted in a similar manner.
French Muslims, estimated at nearly six million, have long complained of rising discrimination and hostile sentiments in the European country.
A recent IFOP poll found that almost half of French see Muslims as a threat to their national identity.
France is home to a Muslim minority of six millions, Europe’s largest.
In October 2013, a poll by Ifop’s opinion department found that almost half of French see Muslims as a threat to their national identity.
The poll also found that most French see Islam is playing too influential role in their society.
Last January, another poll by Ipsos and the Jean-Jaures Foundation found that French are growing concerned with immigrants, politicians, globalization and media, with 74 % believe Islam is not compatible with French society.
Source: OnIslam
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