Interior Minister Angelino Alfano
on Tuesday ordered an imam expelled from Italy for incitement to
anti-Semitic hatred.
"Oh Allah, count them one by one and kill them all," the
Moroccan imam, Raoudi Albdelbar, allegedly preached in a Friday
sermon last month in a mosque in the northern city of San Donà
di Piave, near Venice.
His videotaped sermon was released by the Washington,
DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which was
founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and an
Israeli-born American political scientist.
The interior ministry expelled the imam for "seriously
disturbing the peace, endangering national security, and
religious discrimination" after reports of the sermon and the
videotape surfaced in Milan-based center-right daily Libero.
"Uttering anti-Semitic sermons that explicitly incite to
violence and sectarian hatred is not acceptable," Alfano said.
"May my decision in this case be of warning to all those
who think you can preach hatred in Italy".
The Muslim community in the Veneto region approved of the
minister's decision.
"Islam is a religion on peace. Those who preach death must
not be allowed inside the mosques," said Bouchaib Tanji, who is
the president of the Veneto Islamic Federation and of the
Assalam (Peace) association.
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