Muslim School Avoids Closure

In a last-minute agreement, regional government authorities, the Saudi Arabian embassy and foreign ministry representatives have agreed on a series of conditions that will allow the King Fahd Academy in Bonn to stay open. The school came under investigation earlier this year for alleged ties to the terrorist network al Qaeda and authorities were on the verge of shutting it down. Under the terms of the new agreement, the academy may neither organize external activities nor allow people into the school who could have contacts to terrorist or extremist groups. The school's principle will have to dismiss teachers who have propagated violence or aggressive fundamentalism. The authorities also said they would examine whether there were sufficient grounds for the 465 pupils to attend the school rather than a German school. More than 200 of the academy's students have German passports. A teacher was suspended after reportedly calling for a holy war against the West in Friday prayers at the facility's mosque.