It is one of 51 organizations doomed to be dissolved.
The Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) is, like Baraka City, an “enemy association of the Republic”, in the words of the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, on Europe 1 on Monday.
Accused of acquaintances with the Muslim Brotherhood, which he qualifies as defamation, the collective is now associated by certain officials or activists with the tragedy of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, which cost the life of a professor.
What role would the CCIF have played in the drama?
For MP Aurore Bergé, like other political or militant figures, "this organization provided legal support to those who lynched the teacher".
An allegation that the CCIF rejects.
He simply explains that he was "seized" by the father of the family author of the video posted on social networks in which he described the teacher as a "thug".
“At the stage where the case was on October 16, the CCIF team was at the stage of verifying information, because if indeed we do not intervene in cases where the course relates to freedom of expression and let him use Charlie Hebdo to talk about it, we take action when it comes to discrimination and the registration of Muslims.
No action had been taken […] ”, writes the CCIF on its site.
After the announcement of the dissolution of the collective it is therefore "astonishment" which dominates, confides its former director, Marwan Muhammad, contacted by Le Parisien.
“There are two possible reasons.
A policy: the only reservoir of votes available to the government is on the right.
The only way to conquer is therefore to play the rhetoric of the extreme right.
And the other reason, it is structural: the State, the public power, it does not like associations for the defense of human rights because this underlines its powerlessness ”, confides Marwan Muhammad.
"The CCIF distributes […] targets"
Beyond the Conflans affair, the organization is regularly accused of wanting to use religion for political ends.
And is often found at the heart of controversies over Islam in France.
The most recent: the organization in 2019 of a national demonstration in Paris against Islamophobia, which had torn the political class.
On this occasion, Marwan Muhammad had part of the crowd chant “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”), as Liberation recalls.
“This organization has responsibilities, and it has had them for a long time.
For years, it has been distributing targets on different platforms, ”assures Parisian Fiammetta Venner, political scientist and former Charlie Hebdo pen.
"These are people whose job is to facilitate the passage to the act, they provide the arguments, the methods", she insists.
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The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) was founded in the early 2000s by Samy Debah, a professor of history and geography from Garges-lès-Gonesse (Val-d'Oise) who left the head of the movement in 2017 to focus on the legislative campaign the same year, before committing to the last municipal elections.
The term "Islamophobia", a subject of tension
Accused by his political opponents of having led a “community list”, the candidate, preacher in his youth of the Tabligh, a fundamentalist and proselytizing movement, presented himself without a label.
"Why is it assumed that my unlabeled list will be Community?"
Because I am Samy Debah.
It is neither more nor less than a racist prejudice, ”he estimated in our columns.
“I have been a teacher in a public high school since 1993 and I am proud of it.
If I was blamed for the slightest thing, I would have been punished, ”he also assured.
Now headed by Jawad Bachare before having passed into the hands of Marwan Muhammad for a long time, the CCIF presents itself as an "association for the defense of human rights whose mission is to combat Islamophobia".
A term that crystallizes the many criticisms against the movement.
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Because for some, it prohibits any criticism of Islam.
"This term, when it is put on the head of a Muslim, is a death sentence", notes Fiammetta Venner, for example.
Jean-Christophe Moreau, co-author of “Islamophobia, the counter-investigation” (Plein Jour), estimated in 2015 that this term was used by “an activist base” which defends certain practices, such as wearing the veil, according to him “more of identity than of individual rights ”.
Two criteria retained by the Ministry of the Interior
As the CCIF often reminds us, the word Islamophobia was recognized by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) in 2013. Asked by Le Parisien, Jean-Marie Burguburu, at the head of this commission, assures us about to have “used the term Islamophobia because the CCIF used it”.
As for the link with the collective, which the latter claims, it puts it into perspective.
“The CCIF is understood by the CNCDH, like other organizations, we spend our time hearing individuals and organizations, but we are not partners.
"
If the word Islamophobia is so sensitive, it is because according to its detractors it would belong to the vocabulary of "political Islam" close to the theses of the Muslim Brotherhood.
An acquaintance refuted by the president of the CCIF in a response to a Senate commission of inquiry in 2019. “There is no link.
Some claim to have
proven
anything about this.
In reality, we are criticized by our detractors for making
Islam political
, which does not mean anything concrete, apart from trying to discredit our work.
Our history and our actions are documented and our work will continue in this direction: to identify the violence and discrimination experienced by Muslims in our country and to take legal action to restore their rights, ”Jawad Bachare wrote at the time.
When contacted, the Ministry of the Interior did not respond to our questions on the precise reasons for the upcoming dissolution of the CCIF.
But according to Le Monde, he intends to rely on two criteria: "what affects the apology of terrorism and identity and religious hatred and disturbance of public order".
