Wiesenthal Centre to French President Hollande: Normandy Church Gives Land for Mosque. Jihadist Slits Throat of 86 year old Priest in Normandy Church

July 26, 2016

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE-EUROPE
Tel.: +33(0)1 47 23 76 37
Fax: +33(0)1 47 20 84 01
Email:csweurope@gmail.com

We urge monitoring of Jihadist infiltration in mosques, schools, prisons and media and prohibition of contacts between French officials and Islamist groups, inter alia, ISIS, Al Queda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hizbollah and Boko Haram

The letter stressed the sympathy and solidarity of the Wiesenthal Centre with the victims' families and the Catholic world

Paris, 26 July 2016

In a letter to French President Francois Hollande, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels expressed horror at today's atrocity in St. Etienne du Rouvray, - a suburb town of medieval Rouen in Normandy – which has taken Jihadi terrorism in France across a new threshold...

"From targeting Jewish school children to media cartoonists, from Jewish supermarket shoppers to theater-goers and, now, from truck mass murder of pedestrians to clergy and church worshipers – the savage desecration of a holy place."

The letter noted that Simon Wiesenthal's dire warning was never more current: "What starts with the Jews never ends with them... "

"Mr. President, without harsh counter-measures fitting the present state of urgency, the consequent fear and polarization in France, threatens the Republic in serving extremists right and left."

The Centre urged the President to monitor Jihadist infiltration in mosques, schools, prisons and media, especially internet and social media:

- to prohibit all contact between French municipal, regional, national and international officials and Islamist groups, their members and their admirers. These must include those who finance inculcate, recruit, arm, shelter or heroize, inter alia : - ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizbollah.

- The closure of Jihadist mosques and the outlawing, expulsion and denaturalization of those of their members preaching or inciting to hate and terrorism

- The arrest of all returnees from ISIS who served as interns in the Islamic State

- All other preventive, administrative and legal steps to contain this danger

The letter stressed the, "... sympathy and solidarity of the Wiesenthal Centre with the victims' families and the Catholic world."

"Mr. President, there is a certain irony in that the St. Etienne du Rouvray Catholic parish donated the land for the town's mosque. Yet a Jihadist slit the throat of an 86 year old priest of the parish church – an irony that certainly requires investigation", concluded Samuels.

For further information call Shimon Samuels on 0033609770158, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).