SLOVENIA: MUFTI GIVES MUSLIM ISSUES UPDATE AT

C O N F I D E N T I A L LJUBLJANA 000283

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

EUR/NCE FOR SSADLE, ECA FOR DCROW, EUR/PPD FOR CMUDGETT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/03/2017
TAGS: PHUM PINR PGOV OEXC KIRF SI
SUBJECT: SLOVENIA: MUFTI GIVES MUSLIM ISSUES UPDATE AT
LUNCH WITH COM


Classified By: COM for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY. The leader of the Slovenian Islamic
community, Mufti Nedzad Grabus, told COM that the Slovenian
Islamic community is finding its way through past troubles
with leadership, on course to resolve the long-standing
struggle to build a mosque in Ljubljana, and firmly anchored
in the moderate camp of Islam. He and his deputy, both U.S.
exchange program alumni, are opponents of radical Islam but
do not see a significant radicalism problem here in Slovenia.
Grabus told COM they are working hard on interfaith
relations and relations with the GOS, and are ready to
cooperate with the U.S. Embassy on future projects. END
SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) COM hosted a lunch April 19 for the leader of the
Slovenian Islamic community, Mufti Nedzad Grabus, and his
deputy Nevzet Poric, the secretary of the Slovenian Islamic
community. Poric recently returned from his
Embassy-sponsored trip to the U.S. for the International
Visitor Leadership Program's "Young Muslim Leaders" European
Regional Project.

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Background on the Islamic Community in Slovenia
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3. (C) Grabus, who took up his duties in spring 2006, told
COM that he spent his first year on the job getting to know
the Muslim community in Slovenia. He said his priority was
visiting local communities to assuage any residual
misunderstandings since the departure of the previous Mufti,
who split from the Muslim community leadership in Sarajevo in
an attempt to create an independent Slovenian organization.
Grabus said that his own efforts have been successful, noting
that approximately 5,000 Muslims attended Slovenian Islamic
community-organized Ramadan events while the previous Mufti
has few if any followers and no capacity for programs.


4. (U) Grabus reported that approximately 90 percent of
Slovenia's 50,000 Muslims are Bosniak with the greatest
concentration in the northwestern steel town of Jesenice,
where 20 percent of the population is Muslim. The remaining
number include roughly 5,000 Albanians, 600 Macedonians, and
a handful of Turks, Arabs, and visitors. In addition to that
number, he reported that approximately 20,000 Bosnian Muslims
temporarily reside in Slovenia at any one time as guest
workers. Given that the majority of his flock came to
Slovenia as economic migrants during Yugoslav times, Grabus
said that there are a handful of professional Muslims (i.e.
doctors, lawyers, and professors) that he is working hard to
cultivate to be community leaders, but that the vast majority
of followers in Slovenia are working class laborers who are
not prominent in their communities. He illustrated the void
by noting that the University of Ljubljana has no Muslim
professors while their are many Muslim professors at the
University of Zagreb.

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Places of Worship and the Saga of the Ljubljana Mosque
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5. (U) While there is still no mosque in Slovenia, Grabus
said that the Islamic community has 13 places of worship
(mostly private homes or rented buildings),and with the
exception of one unfriendly neighbor at one location, there
have been no problems. He indicated that for many Muslims in
Slovenia, their religious community is their main social
focal point. Fifteen muslim-affiliated religious and
community organizations scattered around Slovenia serve as
de-facto community centers and children's play centers, and
work on minor education projects dealing with pressing topics
like drugs and human rights. Grabus said these organizations
operate without any problems from the national or local
governments, or from their local non-muslim communities.


6. (SBU) On the much contested topic of a mosque in
Ljubljana, Grabus was relatively upbeat. He said that new
Mayor Zoran Jankovic was saying the right things about moving
the project forward and had told him that the city is working
on cutting through bureaucratic red tape and that he promised
an answer on the current site proposal by May. Grabus seemed
optimistic that the land sale and permit process could begin
and conclude within 2007 and that construction work could
realistically begin on a site as early as spring 2008. It is
clear that Grabus is in regular contact with the city of
Ljubljana on the issue and that he expects Jankovic to be
closely involved in negotiations to complete the deal.
Grabus noted that when all the details were finalized the


Islamic Community would sign a formal contract with Jankovic
to formally begin the project. When asked whether he had any
input related to the mosque for the upcoming religious
freedom report, Grabus wryly responded "ask me again in May."

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Muslim Extremism and Funding for the New Mosque
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7. (C) Grabus downplayed the presence of Islamic
fundamentalists in Slovenia (though he disparagingly noted
that the previous Mufti was influenced by radicals),saying
that he felt there were only a handful -- "maybe 10 to 15" --
Wahhabi in Slovenia and that their ideology was not getting
support or interest from his flock of European-oriented
Muslims. He spun the necessity of a mosque in Ljubljana as
an anti-extremism measure, saying that a mosque was "more
important for the Government of Slovenia (than the Islamic
community)," because it would strengthen his moderate
community of Muslims while isolating any potential extremist
elements.


8. (C) Grabus was open to discussion of financing for the
mosque, and he responded to COM's general inquiry by stating
matter-of-factly that he expected to be approached with
offers for financial support for the mosque from
representatives of significantly more conservative factions
of Islam or Islamic governments in the Middle East. He
quickly pointed out that he had spurned other offers of
cooperation in the past with Middle Eastern organizations
(noting that he has twice turned down offers to collaborate
with scholars in Iran) and that the Slovenian Islamic
community would not accept donations that had ideological
strings attached. He said he strongly preferred to raise
funding from the local Islamic community and from like-minded
moderate Muslims in Bosnia and, perhaps, Turkey or Kuwait.
He did not feel the Slovenian Islamic community could raise
sufficient funds on its own. More than finances, Grabus said
that the most pressing problem would be finding enough
qualified and educated Muslims to run the extensive
programming he hopes to have at the mosque.

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Interfaith Relations, GOS Relations, and the New Religious
Communities Act
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9. (U) Grabus was upbeat about interfaith relations in
Slovenia and relations between the Islamic community and the
GOS. He noted that when Pope Benedict XVI's academic lecture
in Germany last year caused controversy in Muslim communities
around the world he reached out and spoke at length to
Catholic leaders in Slovenia to discuss the incident. He
said that he sees other faith leaders regularly, that
relations are cordial. He was particularly positive about
the GOS Office for Religious Communities and its regular
interfaith outings, which draw together leaders from all of
Slovenia's registered religious groups for informal
discussions and cultural excursions to religious sites in the
country. Grabus was pleased to point out two recent
successes in the Islamic community's relations with the GOS:
(1) a formal agreement with the GOS on the position of the
Islamic community in Slovenia, and (2) permission from local
officials to replace crosses marking the graves of Bosnian
Muslim soldiers who died in World War I with an Islamic
symbol (the 105 graves in a military cemetery near the
village of Log pod Mangartom were adorned with crosses by
Italians in 1933 during the inter-war Italian rule in that
region).


10. (U) Grabus told COM that he was in favor of the recently
passed Religious Communities Act (which has been widely
criticized by opposition, left-of-center politicians for
favoring the Catholic Church). He said that while the law
seems to favor the Roman Catholic Church, this should be
expected in a majority Catholic country and that the original
law, passed in the 1970s, was desperately in need of
updating. Grabus expected any increase in funds to the
Islamic community (via a plank in the law that allows
Slovenes to donate 0.5% of their salaries to religious
charities) to be minimal and said that the Muslim community
will continue to get very modest benefits from the state
(approximately 1,200 Euros per month for 12 people) under a
portion of the law that allows the state to pay into social
security and pension plans for religious community leaders.

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Moderate Leadership Well Exposed to U.S. Perspectives on Islam
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11. (SBU) Grabus, who spent a semester in the U.S. in spring
2006 participating in a State Department-financed partnership
between Arizona State University and the University of
Sarajevo, was extremely positive about the U.S. and about
relations and feelings between Bosnian Muslims and Americans.
He said Bosnian Muslims and Americans are very similar in
their open-mindedness and that the U.S. was a good model for
Bosnia given that it will have to be a country based on
multiple ethnic groups. He talked extensively about the need
for Bosnian Muslims to be an example for other Muslim groups
and that it would be a good thing if the Bosnian "moderate,
European-oriented" version of Islam spread to other Islamic
communities. In reference to the political demonstrations
that erupted over the past few years over cartoon pictures of
Mohammed, he expressed disappointment in seeing "Arabs use
Islam as a tool for this" and noted that the "protesters are
examples of people who are not free."


12. (SBU) Nedzad Poric spoke briefly about his trip to the
U.S., reviewing the different stops on his trip and the
highlights of each. He commented on the special relationship
that developed within the group and offered a few relatively
minor suggestions for improvement of administrative items,
all of which he told us he shared at the debriefing in the
U.S. Poric's response to the trip was generally positive.
During lunch, Grabus noted that Poric's relationship with the
previous Mufti soured when Poric opposed the Mufti's plans
for a more conservative platform. It is clear by this and by
Grabus's description of Poric as a young person that he is
working hard to develop as a leader in the community, that he
was a solid choice for the program and will continue to be a
good Embassy contact for the years to come.

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Slovenian Islamic Community-American Embassy Relations
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13. (U) COM engaged Grabus on how best the U.S. Embassy can
work with the Islamic community in the future. Grabus said
that the Embassy certainly could be of assistance by (1)
talking with Foreign Minister Rupel and other GoS officials
to encourage their strong support of the Islamic Community
and their need for a mosque, (2) continuing the Embassy's
tradition of supporting dialogue between religious and ethnic
groups in Slovenia, and (3) working with the Islamic
community on programs once they get settled with a mosque and
formal community center. On the third point, Grabus said
there is a small but active Muslim women's group that would
probably be a good partner for cooperation on a USG program.

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Comment
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14. (C) Grabus is smart and insightful, politically savvy,
and seems firmly in the moderate camp. Through his
leadership it appears that the Slovenian Islamic community is
finding its way through past troubles with leadership and the
current struggle for a mosque. He is saying the right things
on radicalism and all signs show that he will hold firm to
his beliefs when conservative Islamic donors arrive to woo
his community with funding for the mosque. If his stated
intentions become reality, the Slovenian Islamic community
could be an exemplar of what a modern Muslim community in
Europe can be. It seems likely (as his protege obliquely
referenced at lunch) that Grabus could be poised for a
greater leadership role in the Muslim community in Bosnia
once his term in Slovenia concludes.
ROBERTSON