Muslim Brotherhood: Should Switzerland worry?

In France, 7% of 2,800 Muslim places of worship are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This figure comes of a mandated report by Emmanuel Macron. Published in May, it reveals an institutionalized presence of this movement not only through places of worship, but also associations, schools and financial networks. And this situation worries the authors of the document.

Although “no recent document demonstrates the desire to establish an Islamic State in France or to enforce sharia into it”, the report specifies that “the elements collected accredit the existence of a threat to national cohesion”. Since then, the French government has requested concrete measures to strengthen surveillance, control funding and dissolve certain structures, while specifying that there was no question here of stigmatizing Muslims as a whole. A way to respond to the left, which sees in this relationship a form of Islamophobia.

If the controversy did not have the same magnitude in Switzerland, the subject will invite itself under the federal dome. It is Jacqueline de Quattro (Plr/VD) who took hold of it. In a postulate, she asks the Federal Council to make a report on “the presence, the organization, the influence networks and the means of action of the political Islamist movement, in particular groups close to the Muslim Brotherhood, in Switzerland”. An approach supported by elected officials from all bourgeois parties, PVL, Center, PLR and UDC. Among the co -signs even is a socialist parliamentarian, the Geneva Estelle Revaz.

Large political support

This large support shows that the postulate is likely to pass. If this is the case, the Federal Department of Justice and Police (DFJP) will have to draw up an inventory of the establishment of this movement in the religious, associative, educational, social and digital spons. He will also have to analyze his ideological and social influence, identify sources of funding, partnerships and other training courses. The idea is to see if the Swiss constitutional principles, in particular religious neutrality of the State or equality between women and men, are respected. If necessary, the DFJP should propose measures (legal, organizational or practical) to guarantee social cohesion and the primacy of Swiss standards.

This is not the first time that Jacqueline de Quattro has been speaking on this theme. In June, she already had Arrested Beat Jansthe federal adviser in charge of the file, to know what Switzerland was doing to avoid the risks highlighted in the French report. The latter had recalled the role of the national action prevention plan for radicalization and the ongoing examination of foreign funding for places of worship. Not sufficient according to her.

“The government response focuses on radicalization leading to violence, while the political Islamist movement is precisely distinguished by an influence strategy that does not pass – or not always – by criminal or violent acts,” explains the Vaudoise. It is a more insidious, sometimes legalistic action, but which can aim to bypass democratic standards using the faults of the institutional system. ”

For Jacqueline de Quattro, the government is struggling to take the subject seriously. “When Beat Jans’ services say that” the Federal Council is examining a particular aspect related to a possible influence of certain Islamist circles in particular “, it shows that they do not want to grab the problem.”

And to make the parallel with another file: foreign financing of prayer houses and other educational establishments in Switzerland. A fight she had waged with the national socialist advisor Zurich Fabian Molina. Both managed to convince the Federal Council to report on the issue, but its treatment has already been postponed several times. “Now, we would have every interest in tackling the problem early enough not to find ourselves in the same situation as France,” warns Jacqueline de Quattro.

The Muslim Brotherhood remains “a fundamental problem”

Because concerns with regard to the influence of political Islamism do not fall from nowhere. The threats linked to the Muslim Brotherhood Movement has notably relayed for years by Saïda Keller-Messahli. In An interview with “morning Sunday” in 2024this specialist in Islam said: “In Switzerland there is a fundamental problem in Switzerland: the Muslim Brotherhood.” The latter “have a history in Switzerland since the 1950s, when Hani’s father and Tariq Ramadan installed the first Swiss mosque in Geneva. Surprisingly, there is no political will to take care of this subject, we avoid talking about it. ”

And Saïda Keller-Messahli to recall-still in this interview-that two French journalists have devoted an entire chapter to Switzerland in their book «Qatar Papers». “They show the networks of the Muslim Brotherhood and the millions of euros they receive from Qatar. Politics did not react at all. ” And the founder of the forum for a progressive Islam to conclude: “It is as if we prefer to see that we have tolerated them and even that we cooperated with them.”

Is the postulate of Jacqueline de Quattro demanding a detailed relationship on the question of political Islamism in Switzerland and in particular the role of the Muslim Brotherhood will have adopted without flinching under the Federal Dome? Not sure, because there are critical voices on the left, including that of Jean Tschopp (PS/VD).

“For me, it lacks an essential point in this parliamentary intervention, this is the question of causes and prevention,” explains the Vaudois national councilor, who sits on the Commission of Political Institutions, which takes care of this kind of subject. He continues: “How is it that people who live in Switzerland-young people above all-get carried away in such ideologies? If we are not interested in why, then we miss the subject. ”

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