Jelle van Buuren in De Telegraaf about risky collection campaign for the Belgian-Moroccan imam Tarik Ibn Ali
On 31 May, during a three-hour live broadcast on the Dutch online television channel Islaam.tv, 100,400 euros was pledged to the Belgian-Moroccan imam Tarik Ibn Ali.
Ibn Ali was arrested in his hometown Birmingham last year and extradited to Spain for suspicion of recruiting jihadists, via YouTube videos. Mainly Belgian and Dutch sympathizers donated money because they believe in his innocence. Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, thinks the campaign is ‘risky’: "Spain suspects him of terrorist activities for its reasons. By transferring money, you could get very close to terrorist financing in criminal law. "And that is prohibited in the Netherlands."
Read the full article here (only in Dutch).