Bernese imam resigns after forced marriages scandal
Mustafa Memeti speaks at the opening ceremony of the mosque in the House of Religions in 2015
Keystone / Peter Klaunzer
Mustafa Memeti, the imam of the Muslim Association of Bern and responsible for the mosque in the Swiss capital’s House of Religions, has announced he will stand down at the end of April.
Memeti, 62, said in a statementExternal link on Wednesday that with his resignation he also took responsibility for forced marriages in the House of Religions.
In November Swiss public broadcaster SRF revealed that forced marriages had taken place in the House of ReligionsExternal link in Bern and the imam had not checked in all cases whether the requirements for a religious marriage had been met. The primacy of civil marriage, that is, a civil marriage preceding a religious marriage, had therefore been violated.
Memeti wrote that he was “stunned” by the events, condemning forced marriages as a “heinous and great crime”, but that he took responsibility for the “lack of organisation”.
It is not known who performed the forced marriages in the House of Religions. For this reason, the House of Religions has taken legal action and filed charges against unknown individuals.
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“It is important that these events have now become public,” Memeti wrote. “Because the mosque in the House of Religions is not a backstreet mosque, but an important Muslim institution and a place where the public can and must look. For the establishment of a Swiss Islam, there needs to be Muslim communities that are publicly accountable and do not withdraw into parallel worlds.”
Other factors, such as his age and decades of work as an imam, had also led him to resign, Memeti told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. In addition, there was the heavy workload within the Muslim association and in the House of Religions.
He will formally announce his resignation to the members of the Muslim Association of Bern at their meeting on Saturday.
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