Belgium: 'Taouil is an extremist Muslim'

Belgium: 'Taouil is an extremist Muslim'

Taouil appeared in the news in two contexts recently. One was a report on Islamic extremism in Antwerp that Filip Dewinter published on his site - Taouil announced he will sue Dewinter for accusing him of encouraging Belgian youth to go on Jihad.

The second is the headscarf debate. After two Antwerp school announced they will ban the headscarf, the last schools in Antwerp to do so, Taouil called on Muslims to boycott Flemish schools. He later backed down, but more recently, when the Flemish public school authority decided to ban headscarves across all public schools, he again warned that Muslims .would set up their own schools.


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Imam Nordine Taouil is a extremist Muslims, Alain Winants, administrator-general of the Belgian State Security Service said on Belgian TV (Terzake) yesterday.

Winants said that on the basis of the information they have about Mr. Nordine Taouil, they think he's an extremist Muslim of the Salafist-Wahhabist movement, who is militantly active in the Salafist circles. Taouil supposedly organized training for young Belgian Muslims in radical Koran schools in Pakistan.

Salafism is an uncompromising version of Islam. "It is actually a movement that wants to go back to the original Islam and which rejects all Western influences on Islam," according to Winants.

Taouil set himself up as the spokesperson for the Muslim community in Belgian and in recent months made very sharp statements on the headscarf debate. He's also chairman of the Muslim council, which represents all movements within the Muslim community. But not all Muslims agree with him. His supporters are a small ultra-conservative minority.

Source: HLN (Dutch)