06 10 2007 Belgrade _ Muslim clerics from Serbia’s southwestern region of Sandzak have formed a new Islamic Community, and demanded the resignation a key local imam, media reported Thursday.
At a meeting in the city of Novi Pazar, some 250 kilometers southwest of Belgrade, Islamic clerics from the municipalities of Prijepolje, Nova Varos, Sjenica, Tutin and Novi Pazar formed a new Islamic Community of Serbia; they urged Muamer Zukorlic, the top local imam, to resign and they pledged allegiance to Belgrade’s mufti, Hamdija Jusufspahic.
The clerics have appointed Adem Zikic as the new Community’s head, while Hasib Suljovic has been made Sandzak’s new mufti.
Jusufspahic was not available for comment on Thursday, but local media in Novi Pazar reported that he and Zikic met there to discuss developments.
At the meeting Wednesday, delegates from the five municipalities with large Muslim communities demanded Zukorlic’s resignation on the basis of allegations that he has been guilty of “political engagement, allying with one political option, spreading fear among the clergy and violating their right to free expression,” reports said citing a declaration from the meeting
In a statement carried by Belgrade’s B92 radio, Zukorlic dismissed the allegation and lashed out at the new Islamic Community as the “product of a plot” between Serbia’s intelligence community and Novi Pazar’s influential Mayor Sulejman Ugljanin.
“The public is aware that I asked Serbia’s President (Boris Tadic) and Prime Minister (Vojislav Kostunica) to hand over dossiers on clerics who cooperated with the secret service as informers. We know there are such people,” Zukorlic was quoted as saying.
Sandzak is an ethnically mixed region with a sizable Muslim community that borders Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia’s breakaway province of Kosovo. Earlier this year the region was also the site of armed clashes between police and armed Islamic militant groups that belong to Wahhabi orthodox Muslim groups.
Clerics from the predominantly Sunni Islamic Community including Zukorlic condemned the Wahhabi presence in the region.
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