MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th October, 2020) French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Monday demanded that a mosque in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, which posted a video criticizing the history teacher before his killing in a high-profile attack last week, be closed.
The history teacher was beheaded in the outskirts of Paris on Friday night. The main suspect for the murder, a Moscow-born 18-year-old man of Chechen origin, was shot dead by security forces. The attack came after 47-year-old Paty showed a cartoon depicting Islamic prophet Muhammad to his students at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in a northwestern Paris suburb, outraging some Muslim parents.
"I asked the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis [Georges-Francois Leclerc] to shut the Pantin mosque ... Today, the mosque will be closed, tonight, the prefect will sign his ban," Darmanin told the TF1 broadcaster.
The minister explained that the closure was connected to the fact that the mosque administrator shared online a message calling for the teacher, Samuel Paty, to be intimidated. In particular, it posted on Facebook a video showing the father of one of the teacher's students criticizing him.
French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced the attack on Paty, branding it as a terrorist act. At a Defense Council meeting on Sunday, the president ordered that widespread measures to combat Islamist extremism be implemented. The measures include tightening security in French schools and are to enter into effect after the fall break. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French right-wing National Rally party, in turn, said it was necessary to deport religious separatists of foreign origin advocating hatred from France.
Meanwhile, the probe into the attack is underway, with 15 people, including the mosque's imam, currently in police custody, including members of the attacker's family.
