04-08-16 Nikos Filis defends and outlines decision to erect Athens mosque

In a lengthy speech before parliament Education, Research and Religious Affairs Minister Nikos Filis vehemently defended the government’s decision to erect a large mosque in Athens, referring to the experience and problems of other countries, such as France, and Belgium in integrating the Muslim element in their societies.

Filis referred to the French prime minister’s remarks on the need for France to establish a new modus vivendi with its Muslim citizens and residents, as well as Austria’s February, 2015 law on Muslim communities, which replaced an antiquated law from the era of the Hapsburg Empire when the emperor laid claim to territories with large Muslim populations in the Balkans.

Europe grapples with Islam 

The minister cited the heated debate in the Netherlands and Germany on the relationship of Muslims with the rest of society, and said that in the UK all provisions of Islamic law on a series of issues – especially inheritance law – are implemented through a parallel “judicial” system.

“All these debates and legislative initiatives attempt to confront three main issues:

A. Who funds the mosques?

B. Who educated the religious leaders of Islam?

C. What is the relationship between Islamic law and the legal culture of Europe?,” Filis said.

“The real elephant in the room is different. It is that Europe has not accepted the fact that Muslims are a reality [in their countries]. They are here. Most are citizens of European countries or legal migrants who have found in Europe security, dignity, and opportunities for themselves and their families.”

Filis refuted critics’ arguments that an Athens mosque will act as a magnet for Muslims [from abroad], and that Greece has too many Muslims and is being led to Islamification.

Athens mosque poses no threat of Islamification

“If Mosques [in Greece] were a magnet for Muslims, then no Muslim would come to Athens and all  Muslims would be in Thrace, Rhodes, and Kos. The magnet is economic opportunity, and this is why the aim of Golden Dawn to reduce the number of migrants was realised during the economic crisis. Poverty and economic disaster reduced the migrant population. This is why the number of informal places of prayer for Muslims has been reduced, according to our estimates, by 40 percent,” the minister noted.

“Do you want a “clean” country? Look around you to find which countries are “clean” and tell the Greek people the truth. The only “clean” countries are poor countries, the ones to which no one wants to go,” Filis said, indirectly addressing Golden Dawn.

Filis noted that Europe’s national wars are historically relatively recent when compared to religious wars. “That is why the pope hastened, on the occasion of the recent murder of a French priest – over which we express our horror – to clarify that we are at war, but not a religious war.”

Noting the need to do everything to avert the aims of fundamentalists such as ISIS and [Norwegian mass murderer Anders] Breivik, to avert a religious war, Filis underlined:  “Particularly in Greece, the border between two worlds [East and West], we are well aware that if such a war were to break out, we would be among those to pay the highest price.”

As for the aforementioned three basic questions, Filis said Greece has already answered. In 2000, Greek parliament, following prevailing European practice, passed a law ceding a large property in Paiania, outside Athens, for the construction of a big Islamic centre in which there would be a mosque.

“That center would have been funded by foreign countries and administered by foreign countries. The law was linked to the upcoming Olympics then and to the concept of the religious liberty of our Muslim fellow citizens,” Filis said.  “The law was passed but never implemented, and it was the [Orthodox] Church that first raised the substantial issue of what exactly the function of the Islamic centre would be, and of who would fund and manage it.”

Athens mosque discussed for over a century

In 2006, Greece passed a law stating that the Greek state would fund the mosque and that it would be administered by a governing board in which state representatives would be the majority. Filis said that this provision hovers at the margins of religious liberty, but that the red line – the violation of religious freedom – would not be crossed.

“We will not cross this line and we are always making the necessary planning to maintain delicate balances. Greece decided and enshrined in law 3512 of 2011 that the property and the mosque will belong to the Greek state. They will not be a gift to anyone,” Filis said, noting that both the late Archbishop Christodoulos and the current Archbishop Ieronymos had supported the building of an Athens mosque, as long as it was not controlled by foreign powers and money, conditions met in a 2006 law.

Filis said the history of the effort to build an Athens mosque begins over a century ago, when the issue was first raised, and that even dictators Ioannis Metaxas and Georgios Papadopoulos agreed with the project. The late prime minister and later president Constantine Karamanlis, and later PM Andreas Papandreou, had offered assurances to Arab countries, but the first law providing for the construction was passed under socialist Pasok PM Costas Simitis.

Filis said that the framework for the mosque that the government is tabling today is the same as that in a law, providing for a mosque in Paiania,  passed by the Costas Karamanlis government (nephew of the late president) , and that PM George Papandreou’s government passed a law resolving bureaucratic obstacles.

Filis attributed long delays to bureaucratic red tape, which were long a major obstacle to the construction of the mosque.

Filis noted that a series of lawsuits by citizens to block the building of the mosque – based either on the constitutional provision that Eastern Orthodoxy is the prevailing religion or on environmental dangers – were thrown out by Greek high courts, such as the Council of State’s ruling a month ago.

Noting that the large number of small, informal mosques in Athens violate zoning and health codes and are a “perpetual security danger for all of us”, Filis said that four mosques (one in Thebes) have been issued operation permits.

The minister said that neo-Nazi Golden Dawn’s position that no mosque should exist in Athens is  unconstitutional and violates European treaties, but it is in line with the party’s Nazi ideology.