New Documentary Highlights Qatar’s Role in Sponsoring Global Muslim Brotherhood Educational Institutions in Europe

A new short doc­u­men­tary film by Swiss human rights advo­cate Saï­da Keller-Mes­sahli high­lights Qatar’s role in financ­ing Mus­lim Broth­er­hood edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions through­out Europe. Accord­ing to an arti­cle in Swiss media:

The film should be didac­tic, says Keller-Mes­sahli. “Because although the top­ic of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is a long-run­ning issue, many peo­ple hard­ly know what it is all about.” Part of the film there­fore explains the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, which was found­ed in Egypt around 100 years ago – the old­est and most influ­en­tial Islamist move­ment in the world. For the sec­ond part of the film, Keller-Mes­sahli trav­eled to Bel­gium and France and spoke to peo­ple who, like her­self, ques­tion polit­i­cal Islam. “I would like to ini­ti­ate a debate about which Islam we want here in Europe,” says Keller-Mes­sahli, who was brought from Tunisia to Switzer­land at the age of sev­en by the human rights orga­ni­za­tion “Ter­res des Hommes”.

Read the rest here.

See the film here.

In ear­ly Novem­ber 2021, the doc­u­men­tary, which also fea­tures in-depth inter­views with jour­nal­ists and a Bel­gian under­cov­er police offi­cer, was shown at this year’s edi­tion of the annu­al Carthage Film Fes­ti­val in Tunis, spon­sored by the Tunisian Min­istry of Culture.

The French-lan­guage film, titled “Which Islam fits Europe?,” traces the activ­i­ties of ear­ly Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers, exam­in­ing their efforts of insti­tu­tion­al­iz­ing reli­gious edu­ca­tion in line with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ide­ol­o­gy. The film also focus­es on Qatari fund­ing of Euro­pean mosques and pri­vate reli­gious col­leges, includ­ing the Insti­tut Européen des Sci­ences Humaines (IESH), an edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ty in rur­al France asso­ci­at­ed with the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, one of the lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in Europe. In Sep­tem­ber, Germany’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency pub­lished a report nam­ing the Ger­man IESH chap­ter as among the most impor­tant insti­tu­tions of the GMB in that country.

Islamists, notably the GMB, are orga­nized in exten­sive transna­tion­al net­works that attempt to gain legit­i­ma­cy as the sole voice of Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties in their respec­tive coun­tries. They also try to exert con­trol and influ­ence over their respec­tive Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions in ser­vice of an Islamist agen­da. The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has exten­sive­ly cov­ered the activ­i­ties of the GMB, and many of its front orga­ni­za­tions can be found in the GIOR Wiki.