“I have been almost three years, since the complaint was filed, having a very bad time, psychologically it has affected me a lot and my family asks me when all this is going to end,” Tijani El Bouji, president of the Islamic Federation of Canarias between 2013 and 2018, whom the Higher Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has acquitted – the Provincial Court had already done so before – after being indicted for spreading messages on Facebook in favor of the Palestinian cause and of hatred against Israel and its allies.
El Bouji, a 41-year-old Moroccan, graduated in Islamic Law and Theology, acknowledged that emotionally the judicial process has taken its toll and stressed that his speech has always been that of “peace, coexistence, dialogue, integration, closeness and understanding.” In addition, he recalled that during his time at the head of the federation he received the support of public institutions and citizens, and highlighted his work in favor of multiculturalism. “My goal was always to bring the Muslim community closer to the Canarian population and integrate it, I understood that mosques should be places of prayer and spaces that promote coexistence.”
The TSJC confirmed in all its terms the ruling of the fifth section of the Provincial Court, which determined that El Bouji’s messages were “protected by the right to disseminate free opinions.” He maintains that they cannot, therefore, be considered to constitute a hate crime, as maintained by the public prosecution, which requested four years in prison for the religious leader.
The TSJC abounds in that “no matter how misguided or even tendential some of the opinions are considered, they limit themselves to expressing reflections or comparing situations of a certain political reality, which may or may not be shared (…), but which cannot be In no way can we deduce an incitement to hatred or violence, but rather an opinion of the person who expresses it ”.
It is considered a proven fact that between August 2014 and September 2017 the imam published various images on his Facebook profile alluding to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In one of them, the Palestinian flag appears in the background with a text in Arabic and in which a mujahidin with a rocket launcher is seen. In another one the flag of Israel is seen and in the upper part in English “Israel is a Terrorist State”, while in a third publication there are Israeli soldiers displacing a detained individual with the phrase: “Zionism, savagery, racism, hatred , discrimination, evil and animals in the human body ”.
Tijani El Bouji, former imam of Adeje, said yesterday that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict passes through the mediation of the United Nations. “If the conflict is resolved, many things will be fixed, but it is very difficult, because it is a matter of belief,” he said.
