The support what was called Qatar Charitable Organization offered to terrorist and radical groups became a well-known fact to everybody in the 1990s and during the first decade of the third millennium.
When the organization was given the
name "Qatar Charity", it started falling under the supervision of the
Qatari government. This supervision tried to keep Qatar immune from the evils
of the same terrorist and radical groups.
Organizational structure
When the Syrian civil war broke out in
2012, Doha and the charity organizations it sponsored actively backed the armed
militias and radical groups that started operating in Syria. This brought
intense pressures to the same charity organizations.
Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani
realized then that his government needed to fully supervise these charity
organizations. This was why the Qatari government established the Regulatory
Authority for Charitable Activities in 2014.
Nonetheless, Qatar Charity and the
Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association did not suspend their
financial support to terrorist organizations in Syria. Qatari financing
continued to flow, bankrolling, not only the militias operating in Syria, but
also the Palestinian Hamas movement and the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood
around the world.
Maneuvering
The same charity organizations took
measures to please western governments, including by changing their structure
and boards.
Qatar has three charity organizations
that actively support Muslim communities in western countries. Qatar Foundation
backs educational projects in North and South America and Europe. A look at
statements in 2008 by Yehia Abu Ayaf, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the
Netherlands, could show the enormity of Qatari financing in this regard. Abu
Ayaf said he had initially received €400,000 for the
construction of the Blue Mosque in Amsterdam.
Qatar Foundation
now focuses on supporting educational projects in Europe, especially in the
United Kingdom. In 2011, the foundation started the first business
administration master's program. It then started another program on Arabic
language and culture. It also cooperates with the School of Oriental and
African Studies in training British schoolteachers in Arabic. So far, around 58
British universities had received support and donations from Qatar Foundation.
The support and the donations covered 95 projects.
Almost all Qatari charities are run by
members of the Al Thani family. Each of these charities has its own activities
and responsibilities. The Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable
Association especially sponsors Wahhabi and Salafist organizations. Qatar
Charity sponsors the different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Sometimes, the two organizations clash because of running into the same field,
like in the case of their support for what is called the International
Coalition for Preventing Aggression. The two organizations also clash when it
comes to their support to Youssef al-Qaradawi who leads the so-called Union of
Good. Some of the Salafist organizations in Europe receive support from Sheikh
Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association and also from Qatar Charity,
especially in Africa.
Eid Association
In August 2016, the association signed
contracts for the construction of 17 mosques in different countries. The
association is especially active in Africa and Asia. This means that most of
the mosques the association will construct will be in these two continents.
According to Dutch media reports in
2016, a Salafist organization bought an old school in Rotterdam for€1.7 million. It was the al-Nour Foundation in Heidelberg,
Germany. One of the brokers in this deal was Nasr al-Damanhouri, the manager of
the Salafist al-FurqanMosque and the Endowment Foundation in Eindhoven.
Damanhouri is on the payroll of Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable
Association, according to statements he gave to an Egyptian journalist.
Dutch media said the new owner of the
school wanted to establish an institute for Salafist teachings in Rotterdam.
Arnoud van Doorn, a member of the city council of the Hague, should have become
the head of this foundation. The money for the purchase of the school came from
a Qatari charity, Dutch newspapers said.
The mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Abu
Taleb, meanwhile, travelled to Qatar as part of a government anti-terrorism
delegation. In Qatar, he negotiated with the Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al Thani
Charitable Association over the purchase of the school so that it could become
the headquarters of the association in Rotterdam. He also asked the association
to help his foundation find another location for it in the Netherlands.
Little is known about the other
activities of the association in Europe. In 2013, the association wanted to
become an advisor of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Nonetheless, it had to provide information about all the entities affiliated to
it. The association then submitted a list containing the following entities:
The Islamic Society, Albania
The Arab Cultural Center, Germany
The Waqf Foundation, Kosovo
The Waqf Foundation, the Netherlands
The Waqf of Orebro Mosque, Sweden
The Help the Needy Foundation, the UK
A German intelligence report revealed
in 2016 that Salafists in the European state received support from the Society
of the Revival of Islamic Heritage in Kuwait, the Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad Al
Thani Charitable Association and Saudi Arabia.
Qatari funding to
Brotherhood in France
Qatar interferes financially in the
affairs of Muslims in France. It does this through Qatar Charity and some
Qatari sponsors. Mohamed al-Dabagh founded Qatar Charity in 1991 and headed its
board. He had, however, to resign because of American pressures on the Qatari
regime.
"There was pressure on Dabagh to
resign," said Mohamed al-Louzi who has vast information about the Muslim
Brotherhood.
He said there were suspicions that the
charity offered financing to al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.
Mohamed al-Hamadi, a member of the
International Union of Muslim Scholars, heads the charity now. In 2010, the
charity had total investments of €130 million in
Europe.
Empire of mosques
Qatar's strategy is based on financing
mosques and Islamic centers. These centers are the main channel for financing
the Muslim Brotherhood's activities in France. These activities range between
recruitment and influencing decision-making in the French society. Qatar offers
huge funding for several mosques, including the following:
· Assalam
Mosque in Nantes
This mosque is affiliated to the West
France Islamic Society. The society is a branch of the Union of Islamic
Organizations in France.
· Al-Rahma
Mosque in Strasbourg
The mosque is located in strategic
Hautepierre district. The Social Reform Society in Hautepierre, which is
affiliated to the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, runs this mosque.
· Dassou
Mosque of Argenteuil
It is located in Val-d'Oise. It is a
new mosque that is affiliated to Assalam Society. It is run by Moroccan members
of the Rally of Muslims in France.
· Yutz
Mosque
It is located in Moselle district. It
is a Salafist mosque run by al-Hayat Cultural Society for the Islamic
Community.
· Galliac Mosque
This mosque has room for 260 people,
has an imam who receives a fixed salary (€2,000 a month).
·
Saint-Denis mosque in Saint-Denis
It is called
al-Tawhid Cultural Center. It is affiliated to the Union of Islamic
Organizations in France. On April 26, 2013, the French daily Libération ran an
article in which it referred to visits to the mosque by people with
affiliations to the Muslim Brotherhood. These people included Rached
Ghannouchi, the founder of Ennahda Party in Tunisia, Tareq Ramadan’s brother,
Hani.
·
The Grand Mosque in Reims
It is run by its
board and Reims Center. It is the jewel of the Union of Islamic Organizations
in France as far as Qatari financing is concerned. The mosque of Villeneuve
d’Ascq is the headquarters of the Islamic Center of the city. The center is an
affiliated to the Union of Islamic Organizations. A number of officials from
Qatar Charity visited the mosque in May 2015, including its board chairman,
Sheikh Hamad bin Nasser al-Thani, Youssef al-Kawari, a Qatari national with
affiliations to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ayub Abul Yaqin, the director of
Qatar Charity in the UK.
· The al-Nour Mosque
Itis located in
Mulhouse. It is affiliated to the Alsace and Moselle territory. It is still
under construction. After the completion of this construction, the mosque will
be the largest Muslim Brotherhood Islamic house of worship in the whole of
France. It will be headed by Mahfouz Zawy.
Qatari institutions
Qatar runs and bankrolls a number of
institutions in France. These institutions include the following:
· National
Association for Private Islamic Learning
This association is headed by
Mahmud Mamish, the deputy head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France.
The association contains five Islamic schools, some of which function in the
light of contracts with the French government. The association oversees the
work of a number of Islamic schools, including the Islamic School in
Montpellier and Ibn Rushd School.
·
Collective
against Islamophobia in France
Sami Deba and Marwan Mohamed, who were in their
thirties, founded the Collective against Islamophobia in 2003. The new entity
aimed to counter attacks against the Islamic religion. It also aimed to work
against discrimination and attacks against women wearing the Islamic headgear
at the workplace and in society in general.
·
European
Institute for Humanities
In 1992, Youssef al-Qaradawi inaugurated the
Islamic Sciences School, an affiliate of the Union of Islamic Organizations in
France, in Nievre. Qaradawi was a member of the academic council of the school.
Muslim Brotherhood member Ahmed al-Hamadi gave half a million Euros to the
institute in 2007 as an official of Qatar Charity.
·
Islamic Relief
Rachid Lahlou founded the Islamic branch of
Islamic Relief Organization in 1992. Lahlou did this at the request of Hani
al-Banna who cofounded the branch with him. This cofounder was a strong fan of
Hassan al-Banna and Sayyed Qotb. In 2001, Islamic Relief received $50,000 in
donations from Osama bin Laden. It received another $60,000 from entities
affiliated to al-Qaeda. Qatar Charity allocated a grant of $276,000 to the
organization in 2013.
·
International
and Strategic Relations Institute
When the head of the International and Strategic
Relations Institute, Pascal Boniface, was asked by journalists about funding to
his organization from Qatar, he vehemently denied the presence of this funding.
He even refused to publish information about the financial dealings of the
institute. Anyway, Boniface is always keen to attend the Democracy Forum, an
annual event organized in Doha since 2004. He was also one of the most
outstanding defenders of Qatar against the background of the publication in
2013 of the book “Qatar: the Small Villain” by French writers Nicolas Beau and
Jacques-Marie Bourget.
·
AJ+ Channel
The new channel, which is broadcast by al-Jazeera,
tackles social issues in a very biased manner. It describes others in a racist
way. The channel also denounces the interrogation of veiled women and praises
Tarq Ramadan all the time. It refers to Ramadan as “Mr” or as a “Swiss thinker”.
The channel always interviews people who back Hamas.
·
Arab World
Institute
Qatar contributes part of the budget of the
institute. We found Qaradawi’s books at the library of the institute. The
spokeswoman of the Republicans Party, who works for the institute, threatened
to sue me if I reveal her links with the institute. The same woman is a staunch
advocate of Hamas. Tareq Ramadan was invited several times to speak at the
institute.