Journalist Stands By Radical Islam Claims

Bojan Pancevski, the author of the text about radical Islam that appeared in the British paper, said that he has the recordings of his conversations with three officials from the Macedonian Islamic Community, IVZ, including Sulejman Rexhepi.

“They all confirmed to me that four mosques were not under the IVZ control. I got the impression that they wanted this to be known in public,” Pancevski said.

Pancevski said that he suspects that the IVZ misunderstood the original content of his text as some parts of it might have been misinterpreted in the local media in Macedonia.

Earlier today, Rexhepi’s office issued a press release denying that Rexhepi had said this to the British newspaper or that he had ever spoken with the journalist.

“Rexhepi never met or talked to the journalist of the British newspaper,” his office told media in the press release.

The Sunday Times cited the religious leader as saying that members of Islamic religious groups that are considered more radical than the moderate Islam practiced in the Balkans had taken over mosques in Skopje.

“The mosques in Macedonia are built exclusively with permits from the IVZ and with the money gathered from local believers. They are not in any way to be linked with radical Islamist groups or with suspicious donations,” Rexhepi’s office wrote.

The IVZ runs some 120 religious sites in Skopje and its surrounding area.

The British newspaper also cited unnamed Macedonian officials as saying that the state is currently investigating fundamentalists, like some strict Wahhabi and Salafi factions, funded by Saudi organisations.

Allegedly the newly recruited zealots are taught to hate the west and some of them are encouraged to join terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sunday Times wrote.

Macedonian Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska yesterday was not specific as to the veracity of these claims.

“Taking into account that Macedonia is part of the global anti-terrorism coalition with its soldiers on the ground, it is normal that we too are possible targets of terrorist threats,” Jankulovska told media.

She noted that the police have followed suspicious flows of money in the past and reacted to possible terrorist threats.