A subsidy granted for years to an organisation suspected of links to the Muslim Brotherhood is now under scrutiny in the FWB legislature, with Mouvement Réformateur (MR) parliamentarian Denis Ducarme calling for a commission of inquiry into the issue.
According to La Dernière Heure daily, the Collective for Inclusion and Against Islamophobia in Belgium, CIIB, has received subsidies of around €300,000 in recent years, notably from the federal government and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, .
However, an intelligence report produced in April described the CIIB as a "Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated pressure group."
According to the report, it was founded by seven individuals, "including a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an activist promoting the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood."
It spreads "a narrative borrowed from the Muslim Brotherhood that tends to promote the idea of inherent hostility towards Islam and Muslims in European societies and states," the report claimed.
The CIIB has defended itself against these allegations, demanding that the report be made public and that its right of reply be guaranteed.
Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said on Tuesday in a House committee that the State Security Service had sent a memo to the FWB in 2020 about the Muslim Brotherhood, in connection with a request for subsidies from the CIIB.
The note was discussed "at the administrative level," Quintin said.
"‘We paid €300,000 to such an organisation even though information about its nature was public," MR's Denis Ducarme said on Tuesday, reiterating a call for a commission of inquiry.
