Mahmoud Jamil al-Debe (, born 10 August 1954) is the chairman of the
Muslim Association of Sweden
The Muslim Association of Sweden (, SMF) is Sweden's largest Muslim organisation, which represents around 70,000 Muslims in Sweden, which receives state aid from Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities.
In the mid 1980s Mahmoud Aldebe, ...
(SMF). He was previously vice chairman of the
Muslim Council of Sweden, an umbrella organization with the Muslim Association of Sweden as one of its members.
In the mid 1980s, as the chairman of SMF and in conjunction with the
National Swedish Immigration and Naturalization Board (the former name of the
Swedish Migration Agency) he authored the leaflet "Islam i Sverige" (Islam in Sweden) wherein he expresses the view that Islam is an all-encompassing belief system which gives firm instructions which are to be followed in all aspects of daily life: moral, spiritual, political and economic.
In 2006, as the chairman of SMF he authored a letter to every party in the
Riksdag
The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...
where it was demanded that Muslims receive a special set of laws and rules: imams must approve divorces, schools should teach Muslim children Arabic and religion in segregated groups and that boys and girls should not have lessons in swimming together. Aldebe also demanded that employers give Muslims two extra days of paid days off to celebrate Islamic holidays. Aldebe's ideas of an all-encompassing Islam and demands that Swedish ideas about what belong to the secular part of society must be reformed, are founded in the ideology of islamist
Hassan al-Banna
Hassan Ahmed Abd al-Rahman Muhammed al-Banna (; 14 October 1906 – 12 February 1949), known as Hassan al-Banna (), was an Egyptian schoolteacher and Imam, best known for founding the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential g ...
.
Aldebe was born in
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
and immigrated to Sweden in the late 1970s together with his wife Ebtisam Aldebe. His wife was a candidate for the
Centre Party in the
2006 Swedish parliament elections, but didn't receive enough votes to get a seat. She participated in the campaign for Muslims having a
parallel legal system in Sweden.
His wife was a
lay judge
A lay judge, sometimes called a lay assessor (law), assessor, is a person assisting a judge in a trial. Lay judges are used in some civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions. Lay judges are appointed volunteers and often require some legal ...
at Solna
district court
District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations, some call them "small case court" usually as the lowest level of the hierarchy.
These courts generally work under a higher court which exercises control over the lower co ...
, where at a trial March 2018 she acquitted a man from a charge of wife-beating because he was from a "better family" and the wife should have "resolved the dispute with the husband's family".
In the aftermath of the court decision, both Ebtisam Aldebe and the other lay judge who served at that trial were dismissed from service at the district court and were stripped of their membership in the Centre Party.
Controversies
In 2003, Aldebe wrote a letter of appeal to then Swedish Minister for Justice
Thomas Bodström, requesting a new trial for the brothers Rezkar and Dakhaz Atroshi, who were sentenced to life in prison for assisting in the
honor killing
An honor killing (American English), ''honour killing'' (Commonwealth English), or ''shame killing'' is a type of murder in which a person, usually a woman or girl, is killed by or at the behest of male members of their family or their male ...
of 19-year-old
Pela Atroshi in
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan () refers to the Kurds, Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of Greater Kurdistan in West Asia, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdist ...
in 1999. The murder was described by the court as an example of
honor killing
An honor killing (American English), ''honour killing'' (Commonwealth English), or ''shame killing'' is a type of murder in which a person, usually a woman or girl, is killed by or at the behest of male members of their family or their male ...
. In the letter, which Aldebe wrote on behalf of and as vice chairman of the
Muslim Council of Sweden, Aldebe claimed that the brothers were innocent and that the verdict was the result of a "conspiracy" involving leading politicians, the police and the media.
In an article published in ''
Expressen
(''The Express'') is one of two nationwide evening newspapers in Sweden. Describing itself as independent liberal, was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and its slogans are "it stings" or " to your rescue".
The newspaper awards the cultu ...
'' on 3 October 2005, Swedish Imam and Muslim convert
Abd al Haqq Kielan
Abd al Haqq Kielan (, born 22 June 1941) is a Swedish Muslim cleric. He is an imam at the mosque in Eskilstuna and at the Islamic Association in Stockholm. He is also chairman of the Swedish Islamic Society and permanent secretary of the Swedis ...
wrote that Aldebe had approached him and said to him that he was "a Jew who has converted to Islam to destroy for the Muslims" and that he had also called him "
Shayṭān" (
Satan
Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
).
Kielan further accused Aldebe of using
undemocratic methods such as "threats, slander and reprisal" against critics.
[ In the Swedish Television (]Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television aktiebolag, Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksd ...
) documentary ''Slaget om muslimerna'' (The battle for the muslims), Aldebe is accused to being an Islamist, intent on giving Islam an official political role in Sweden.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldebe, Mahmoud
1954 births
Living people
Swedish Muslims
Jordanian emigrants to Sweden