04 July 2012

Mosque struggles to shrug off extremist label

Accused of preaching a fundamentalist line of Islam, the Errhamen Mosque of Biel is once again in the firing line for having welcomed amongst its worshippers young men who have travelled abroad to fight jihad.

In an upstairs office of the mosque, an old building in the throes of renovation, Imam Khalid ben Mohamed, an affable political refugee from Algeria who has lived in Switzerland for 17 years, welcomes swissinfo.ch with a smile.

In this interview, ben Mohamed discusses the reasons behind the mosque’s decision to restrict media access to prayer areas, and the rumours damaging its reputation. [swissinfo.ch] Read more