Leaked documents from the Belgian Unit for Coordination and Threat Analysis (OCAM) have revealed that future Belgian Imams are being trained with materials containing radical Islamic policies including persecuting homosexuals engaging in armed jihad.
The documents, which were leaked to Belgian journalist Jean-Pierre Martin, contain excerpts from training manuals and textbooks used by the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium (CICB) Belgian broadcaster RTL reports.
According to the leaked report, “the teaching of the Muslim religion of the Arab section of the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium is in no way adapted to the Belgian or European reference framework. Salafist ideas and doctrines that encourage the rejection of any different ideas and fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms.”
“Many mosques and Islamic centres in Belgium still have in their libraries and as part of their training activities textbooks and texts presenting a problematic content in terms of radicalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism,” the report adds.
The CICB is also known for running the Great Mosque of Brussels, which until March of this year, was owned by the Saudi Arabian government. The Belgians seized control of the mosque following allegations that Imams were preaching radical Salafist teachings, which the leaked documents confirm.
The report is not the first OCAD document leaked that has warned of growing radicalism in Belgium. Earlier this year a document from 2016 was published by Belgian media and warned that “a growing number of mosques and Islamic centres in Belgium are under the influence of a Wahhabi, Salafist proselytising apparatus. More and more mosques in Brussels, Antwerp and Mechelen are strictly Wahhabist.”
For years the Belgian capital has been known as a hub of radical Islamic extremism, especially in migrant-heavy areas like the notorious district of Molenbeek where Bataclan attacker Salah Abdeslam was able to hide out for months following the 2015 attack.
Radical Islamic links have also been found in 51 nonprofits based in Brussels according to a police investigation last year. All of the nonprofits were located in Molenbeek.