France’s Interior Minister has announced plans to dissolve the country’s largest anti-Islamophobia organization, the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF). After the killing last month of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, who showed blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to his class, Gerald Darmanin declared the CCIF an “enemy of the Republic.” In October, Darmanin took similar action against France’s biggest Muslim charity, BarakaCity.

“In accordance with the instructions of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, I have notified the officials of the CCIF of the intention to initiate the dissolution of their organization,” Gerald Darmanin said in a tweet yesterday. He specified that those in charge of the collective “now have 8 days to make their observations known.” In response, the CCIF leadership said it had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack against Samuel Paty and it has been slandered by the French establishment.

“For the last week the CCIF has been slandered without interruption and in many media a real hatred has been expressed against our association, accompanied by thousands of messages of insults and threats on social networks, without the slightest reaction from the government. Although we have always been attacked in public debate, even by political figures, the defamation and false accusations which are today brought against us mark a real turning point in the process of destabilization of human rights defenders…The CCIF also vowed to continue its work outside of France.

Source: 5pillars