Norwegian Imam Reported for Hate Speech After Praising Hitler, Attacking Jews

In the now-deleted posts that the imam later attributed to his frustration over attacks in Gaza, he wrote “Hitler let some Jews be so that the world would see how cruel this nation is and why it is necessary to kill them”.

An imam in the Norwegian city of Drammen has been reported for hate speech and incitement to criminal activity due to his posts on Facebook.

The man has served as a local imam in Drammen, which has the second-highest percentage of immigrants of any community in Norway, trailing only Oslo, since 2009 and has been a member of the Muslim organisation Minhaj-ul-Quran.

The report refers to several of the imam’s posts on Facebook, all of which contained harsh statements about Jews and Israel.

“Hitler let some Jews be so that the world would see how cruel this nation is and why it is necessary to kill them,” he wrote in one of the posts.

“Israel is the devil, and Hitler left behind some Jews so that the world could see that if they survived, humanity would be in danger because of them,” he wrote in another, as quoted by the newspaper Drammens Tidende, which reserved the right to minor errors as the posts were translated from Urdu.

The newspaper has confirmed that the Southeastern Police District is familiar with the reported matter.

According to the report, the man had some 2,900 Facebook friends and 1,150 followers.

The imam in question subsequently issued an apology for the Facebook posts.

“I will first and foremost apologise for my statements on Facebook. My statements and subsequent comments from others do not represent my views and what I stand for. I have spent much of my life working for equality, understanding, respect and tolerance. To me, these are values that are highly cherished,” he said.