In Belgium, a teacher suspended for showing a caricature of Muhammad

Mayor Catherine Moureaux visits a school in the Molenbeek district, in Brussels, in spring 2020. -

A teacher was suspended this week in Brussels for showing his 10-11-year-old students a cartoon published by

showing the Prophet Muhammad naked on all fours, which was deemed "obscene" by his leadership.

The information, revealed by the daily

, was confirmed by the spokesperson for the mayor of Molenbeek, the Brussels municipality where the facts occurred.

According to this spokesperson, Rachid Barghouti, "two or three parents" complained to the management of this primary school that a drawing showing the genitals of the prophet was brandished in front of "children of 5th and 6th primary" [both last levels of primary].

An initiative denounced by the school director to the supervisory authority

As part of a course on freedom of expression, after the assassination this month of a French teacher who showed his teenage students several caricatures of Muhammad, the teacher chose to show one of the drawings of this lot, already published by the French weekly

.

Reported to the school director, his initiative was denounced by the latter to the supervisory authority, namely the elected members of the municipal executive.

The teacher “was heard Thursday by the municipal college [the mayor and his deputies] and dismissed, explained Rachid Barghouti.

It is not a sanction, it amounts to initiating the disciplinary procedure.

A new hearing before the same elected officials is scheduled for Thursday to decide on a possible sanction.

"Our decision is solely based on the fact that these are obscene images, if it had not been for the prophet we would have taken exactly the same decision", said the spokesperson for Catherine Moureaux, the mayor. socialist who manages the city in coalition with the French-speaking liberals.

Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, breeding ground for jihadism in Europe

Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, a popular commune of about 100,000 inhabitants, with a large community of Moroccan origin, acquired the reputation of being a breeding ground for jihadism in Europe, when the Franco-Belgian investigation into the Paris attacks of 13 November 2015 (130 dead) revealed that several attackers were from there.

According to Rachid Barghouti, discussing freedom of expression at school "is important, there is no censorship in relation to that".

But "it must be done in a framework that is a little thought out, considered".

"Showing obscene images in such a brutal way to such young children is not very smart from an educational point of view," he insisted.

“If we have a history class that talks about nudes from Antiquity, we contextualize, we explain why we used the nude during Antiquity,” the municipal official further underlined.

Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was beheaded on October 16, ten days after showing his 4th year students caricatures of Muhammad during a free speech class.

He had been the target of social networks and online mobilization.

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