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April 04, 2012 - 02:17 PM We will face this same trouble if we do not do something very soon.............................. Italy: "Mosques Springing Up like Mushrooms" More than 250 mosques across Italy have reached an agreement to create a new umbrella organization, the Italian Islamic Confederation (CII). The CII will be controlled by Morocco, and will compete with an existing Muslim umbrella organization, the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII). The UCOII, which is estimated to control 60% of the mosques in Italy, is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Since its founding in 1990, the UCOII has used its virtual monopoly over the mosques in Italy to spread its Islamist ideology over the 1.5 million Muslims in the country. The UCOII has also worked to become the main interlocutor between the Muslim community and the Italian state. But the Italian government has ruled out reaching an agreement with the UCOII because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood. "There can be no accords with those like the UCOII, who de facto deny the existence of the state of Israel and hold ambiguous positions on terrorism at the national and local level," according to Andrea Ronchi, Italy's former Minister for Community Policy. After it came to light that the majority of the mosques in Italy are controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni called for a moratorium on the building of new mosques until a new national law could be written to regulate the phenomenon. According to Manes Bernardini, a politician with the Northern League in Bologna, "Mosques are springing up like mushrooms, and mayors can do nothing about it because there is no national law to regulate the proliferation of these structures.".......... Love, Red from NM |