Muslim leaders complain of harassment

Representatives of Cote d'Ivoire's Muslims denounced on Thursday what they described as harassment against their community after five imams were summoned by the head of the gendarmerie to discuss allegations against Muslim leader Idriss Kone Koudouss and Alassane Dramane Ouattara, head of the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR) party.

Koudouss, president of the Conseil superieur des Imams (COSIM - Superior Council of Imams), was one of the five imams "invited", according to the head of the gendarmes, Colonel Georges Deon, to discuss the allegations on Thursday.

The imams said in a declaration that they were told Koudouss had allegedly ordered home-made guns in a location in the mainly Muslim north of the country, considered by many to be an RDR stronghold. Another allegation was that Ouattara had drawn up, in collusion with the imams, a strategy to destabilise Cote d'Ivoire in case his bid to run for election as president on 17 September was rejected and had recruited a thousand mercenaries.

The imams said this was the fifth time they had been summoned by the gendarmerie. They charged that their repeated summoning stemmed from a "lack of respect and consideration for Muslim clerics and, thus, the entire Muslim community" and that they believed "these actions are part of an effort to diabolise and discredit Muslim dignitaries and their community".