 in the East Flemish city of Aalst for one year, BBC Turkish service reported on Tuesday.){kind=link}
Flemish Interior Minister Gwendolyn Rutten has suspended the official recognition that had been granted to a mosque affiliated with Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in the East Flemish city of Aalst for one year, BBC Turkish service reported on Tuesday.
The suspension of official recognition means that the Kevser Mosque won’t receive any funding from the provincial authorities, East Flanders in this case, in order to cover such expenses as utility bills for the coming year.
Salaries and housing expenses of imams in officially recognized mosques are covered by the state budget and not by the province of the Flemish authorities. Therefore, it will be up to the federal authorities to decide whether the Kevser Mosque imam’s expenses will be covered. There is a possibility of the imam losing his salary and residence permit due to the suspension, BBC Turkish said.
According to Rutten, the suspension is due to a violation of the Flemish decree on places of worship that says they must have a publicly accessible area where believers can pray. The minister said there has been no such area in the Kevser Mosque for the past two years despite promises made to rectify the situation.
The mosque building was sealed by the police in 2022 due to “serious construction violations,” BBC Turkish reported, citing Belgian media.
The Flemish Information and Screening Service also decided a few months ago that the mosque is still not suitable for worship due to “financial negligence during renovation work.”
Kevser was one of three Diyanet-affiliated mosques in Belgium, the shortcomings of which were deemed serious enough for former Flemish minister of home affairs Bart Somers to initiate suspension proceedings last year. The former minister cited “foreign interference” in Flemish local religious communities as the main reason for the proceedings.
Rutten also told VRT NWS, the news service of Flemish public broadcaster VRT, on Tuesday that there was suspicion of foreign interference in the Kevser Mosque.
“The mosque is part of the Diyanet group of mosques, and these are often said to be antennae for the Turkish President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan,” the minister said.
The Belgian Diyanet Foundation, which controls 70 mosques in the country, told BBC Turkish that it has initiated the necessary legal process regarding the suspension within the framework of Belgian laws and are closely monitoring the process.
Diyanet-affiliated mosques and foundations around the world have been accused of acting as Erdoğan’s propaganda tools and involvement in spying on his critics. Through its foundation, Diyanet provides funding and appoints imams, who are public servants on the government payroll, to the overseas mosques.
