French Mosque Closed After Sharing Video Linked to Teacher’s Murder

This place of worship led by M’hammed Henniche, president of the Union of Muslim Associations of Seine-Saint-Denis (UAM 93) was closed by a prefectural decree, signed on October 19. According to the decree, an Internet user went so far as to publish the name and address of the college where Samuel Paty intervenes without this publication being deleted "on the part of the leaders of the great mosque of Pantin, notwithstanding the risk that the disclosure of his identity posed for the person concerned", the decree specified.

M’Hammed Henniche is also accused of publishing controversial comments on social media in 2018 "in which he called on parents to withdraw their children from public schools".

The other grievance at the origin of the closure is the main imam of the mosque, Ibrahim Doucouré, "involved in the radical Islamist movement in Île-de-France". He would have studied for two years at the Markaz de Damaj in Yemen, a fundamentalist institute in which Youssef Bounouader, (...) former imam of the Ecquevilly mosque (Yvelines), who was the subject of a closure measure by decree of November 2, 2016. The children of the accused would also have studied in the "clandestine school" of Bobigny which was closed "in particular because of the discovery, within the premises, of the book Learning Tawhid to Children, prohibited from sale or use by minors".

In addition, the imam’s attendance by people involved in the jihadist movement, including a person linked to the Lagny-sur-Marne mosque in Seine-et-Marne, closed after the November 2015 attacks. If for M’Hammed Henniche, the closure of the mosque is a "disproportionate" decision, his faithful consider it a "collective punishment".