Stockholm, MINA – The Swedish government closed more schools belonging to the Muslim community in an effort to encourage “anti-Islamic rhetoric”, a move criticized for discrimination.
The head of the independent Muslim school Framstegsskolan in Stockholm’s Ragsved suburb Mohamed Amin Kharraki told Anadolu Agency (AA) that around 20 Islamic or Muslim-owned schools were closed, while only three remained.
Earlier this year, the Nordic country’s Education Minister Lena Axelsson Kjellblum said her government had introduced a law aimed at ‘banning the establishment of so-called independent religious schools’.
So far, only Islamic schools have been targeted by the law, prompting protests from Muslim organizations, researchers and schools, arguing the decision to close Islamic schools was not based on academic results.
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Sead Busuladzic, a board member of Nyan’s political party and official in the southernmost county of Skane, told AA the school closures were not about education, but about the anti-Muslim political climate.
He points out how right-wing parties currently in power have explicitly said they are not against Christian, Jewish or other denominations.
Busuladzic explained that, in the beginning, it was the Social Democrats who pushed for this issue, because they were “against all private schools”, and argued that the state should run all educational institutions.
In practice, however, only Islamic schools bore the brunt of even the Social Democratic policies, even though they were purportedly opposed to private education in general. (T/RE1)
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