The military ruler of the West African country Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, has issued a stern warning to the country’s Muslim clerics, saying the state’s “fight has begun” against extremist Islam.
In a recent speech Traoré said the government would take firm measures if Islam were used as an instrument of extremism. If that is your Islam, he said, then we will fight against it. Extremists must change. Otherwise the fight has already begun.
He also defended the government’s contested religious freedom law. He claimed the new law would further strengthen the country’s secular system of state. At the same time he warned that imams who spread extremism in their sermons would be temporarily suspended. He also promised state support for clerics who preach a peaceful Islam.
In May one of the country’s most influential Sunni clerics, Imam Mohamed Ishaq Kindo, was arrested for criticising the draft of the religious freedom law. When protests later began demanding his release, the authorities closed the largest Sunni mosque in the capital, Ouagadougou. About 100 of his supporters were then sent to a military camp in the name of “civic training.” Imam Mahmoud Baro had earlier been detained on a similar charge.
On 20 June the interim parliament passed the religious freedom law unanimously. It provides for fines and imprisonment for forcing children into begging, for failing to ensure financial transparency at religious institutions, and for certain religious irregularities defined by the authorities. The government says the law will strengthen the secular constitutional framework. Critics allege, however, that it is a move to increase state control over religious institutions.
In analysts’ view this dispute is not centred on a single law; rather it signals the breakdown of the informal understanding that had grown up between the military government and Muslim clerics since it seized power in 2022. That could weaken the government’s political base while also making it harder to tackle the long-running militant crisis.
Traoré has also announced restrictions on students going abroad for Islamic education. Religious education abroad will not be permitted without government approval, and students studying abroad will have to return home. Otherwise, they have been warned, their citizenship may be revoked.
At the same time Burkina Faso is strengthening its relations with Israel. Israel’s new ambassador to the country, Simon Serussi, recently took up his post formally. The step has been taken amid moves to increase security cooperation.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report