MILAN, 10 September 2005 — Milan authorities who want to shut down an illegal Islamic school have fired up a row with some of the city’s Muslims, who feel their culture is under attack.
The school shares its building with a mosque that prosecutors have linked to militancy. Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, a terrorism suspect with a standing arrest order in Italy, used to preach there. The official reason authorities give for ordering the school’s closure relates to building code. But parents doubt they are being sincere.
“The building is basically a factory building, you can’t have children there. There are no bathrooms, and what would happen if there was a fire?” one official at Milan’s education authority, who did not want to be named, said yesterday.
The city agreed a compromise with school representatives earlier this year for the 350 children who attend classes at the school but are officially counted as playing truant.
The school would have moved to a more suitable building and adapted the Italian curriculum, with the option to take additional lessons in Arabic. But city officials said the teachers had failed to present a detailed proposal for a new building, prompting authorities to order the old school’s closure.
Asked what kind of school they preferred, one of them answered: “Italian school — Arabic is so difficult.” But their parents disagree. “We want to send our children to a school where they will study Arabic, where they will study Islam,” said Mohammed, a Jordanian who declined to give his surname.
