WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / August 5, 2018 / On July 24, 2018, Danish imam Mundhir Abdallah, of the Al- Faruq mosque in Copenhagen, was indicted for inciting violence in a Friday, March 31, 2017 sermon that was translated and released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). News reports from across Europe on the indictment credited MEMRI with exposing Imam Abdallah, stating: "His preaching was translated from Arabic into English by the U.S. Middle East Media Research Institute."
The imam's indictment is the first case of its kind in Denmark, under a provision in the Criminal Code introduced on January 1, 2017. Public prosecutor Eva Ronne said that it is legal in Denmark to quote religious books like the Koran and the Bible, but that inciting or welcoming the killing of people could be punishable by up to three years in prison. She added: "It has always been illegal to accept killings of a certain group of people, but it's new for us to target hate preachers." The Imam is also charged with the Penal Code Racism Paragraph 266b. The criminal case, which is to be conducted at Copenhagen City Council, is not yet scheduled.
After the indictment, Imam Abdallah wrote in an email to several Danish media outlets, including TV2, that he believed his words had been taken out of context. His March 31 sermon, he wrote, was against the backdrop of the Arab League summit that was taking place at the time, and about the Palestinian cause that was on its agenda. He noted that his statements were "exclusively about the Zionist occupation of Palestine." It was reported on July 25 that Imam Abdallah had resigned.
MEMRI research and translation efforts are an increasingly costly endeavor, and as a nonprofit organization its accomplishments are made possible only by its supporters, donors, and contributors. Producing MEMRI TV clips demands extensive and advanced technology and human expertise – from monitoring, recording, and reviewing raw programming to translating, captioning, and uploading clips. MEMRI asks for help to continue this work through tax-deductible donations to the MEMRI Summer Campaign.
About The Lantos Antisemitism Documentation Project:
The Lantos Antisemitism Documentation Project documents anti-semitic themes in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish newspaper reports, editorials, and other media sources. This project maintains the largest archive in the world of translated material from the Middle East from the past decade. In 2009, MEMRI, in conjunction with The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, dedicated the Lantos Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial Archives, which will be the repository of MEMRI's Antisemitism Documentation Project.