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http://www.independent.mk/articles/10543/Unrest+in+Skopje+Mosques
Jihad is when the citizen, the believer decides to defend the fatherland. If a person needs to die, than he should die for Macedonia, to defend the territorial integrity of his country, of his homeland, said the Head of the Islamic Religious Community (IRC) in Macedonia, Reis Suleyman Rexhepi over the weekend speaking about the problems radical Islam brings, according to daily Utrinski.
Although, according to Mr. Rexhepi, there has been a halt in the radical Islam in the past several years, he is still pointing to the mosques of Yahya Pasha and "Tutunzes" in Skopje as places where the IRC has lost its control. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, the chief of the IRC is again seeking help from the state institutions to restore the control in part of the religious edifices located mainly in the Old Bazaar in Skopje.
Will the interior ministry ever be able to penetrate inside the disputed mosques located in the Old Bazaar which have been designated by the highest religious representatives of Islam in Macedonia? While raids and mass arrests over links with jihadists in Syria are taking place across Europe, the Macedonian police forces are decisive that they have no capacity to enter religious places. They are calling the IRC to find a solution to the problem via the courts.
"The police forces have no authority to check whether the mosques are controlled by the IRC, but in terms of safety, all national security measures are being taken," the Macedonian interior ministry said according to Utrinski newspaper.
Several months ago, Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska assessed the call of Reis Rexhepi to restore control over these two mosques in Skopje, as a "spectacular statement done for his personal goals".
The religious chief himself insists that he does not ask the police to enter the mosques, but that the IRC needs help to tackle the problem. "In several occasions we have filed charges against a person who does not allow the Islamic Religious Community to control the mosque," Rexhepi said, without mentioning more details of the case. He believes that the mosques are public buildings; therefore, the authorities should check what is happening inside the mosques. "That means that if there is any hideout or if some elements of the Muslim radicalism return, they should be searched there," Reis Rexhepi pointed.
Previously, Utrinski has reported that the Sultan Murat, Hudaverdi, Ksjoekadi and the Yahya Pasha mosques, although seeming quiet and low profiled, are actually the centers of "strange" visitors during the prayers.
"In the Yahya Pasha mosque, the religious official and his aid have been appointed by the IRC and they are our employees, however, the person in charge of the mosque's maintenance has not been appointed by us, he does not have our support and our consent. At the Tutunses mosque, we don't even have a religious official appointed there and I have said it many times before and I will say it again, whoever person loses a son, he will find him in that mosque," Rexhepi claims.
The Head of the Islamic Religious Community has sent a call for the disputed mosques in several attempts. The concerns grew bigger when only in few months, around ten young persons from Macedonia have lost their lives in the battlefields, fighting alongside the Islamic State jihadists. IRC, which plays a large role in the process of convincing these young people not to go risk their lives in foreign battlegrounds because of money or because they have been "brainwashed", claims that they have managed to reason some of them and make them stay. Few of those people were then hired in several religious edifices across the country, after having signed a document previously stating they recognize the IRC.
Experts believe that behind radicalism, except the ideology, there is also the great financial assistance and support. When people would be more financially secure, the radical currents would disappear.
Intelligence data show that by using the right to a three-month stay in Turkey, part of the Macedonian jihadists leave from there to Syria and Iraq, trying not to abuse their legal stay in the country which serves them as a gate to enter the battlefields. They come to Macedonia for a short while and go back again.
"Unfortunately, such tendency has not been drastically lowered yet, although we have seen a bigger number of people returning because of the more and more intensive international campaign against the Islamic Caliphate. In Macedonia, we still have not determined any indicators that would point to any type of a terrorist acts," said Toni Jakimovski, national coordinator for terrorism appointed at the recently held international conference in Ohrid.
Experts stress that the biggest problem for the country are those who have returned from the battlegrounds. Therefore, a strategy is needed in dealing with those structures.
The former Foreign Minister, Pavle Trajanov, has emphasized in several occasions that the several thousand citizens from the Balkan countries who are trained and are fighting in Syria and Iraq, represent a serious problem and a threat to the stability of the Peninsula. The MP believes that IRC in Macedonia needs help from the state, in order to prevent the institutionalization of the radical Islamists, as it is the case in Kosovo and Bosnia.
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