The Generalitat legitimises a Muslim congress with speakers detained for links to Islamic radicalism.
The UCIDICAT Islamic Youth Congress, with the collaboration of the Directorate-General for Religious Affairs, features speakers who advocate patriarchal roles, identity victimhood and an exclusionary view of society. Two of the five have been held in a police station.
Taoufik Cheddadi, Wafae Moussaoui and Yusuf Soldado
[social-share align=»right» style=»button» mobile_app=»desktop»]
[social-share align=»center» style=»icon» mobile_app=»mobile»]
On 19, 20 and 21 December 2025, it will be held in El Prat de Llobregat. the fourth edition of the Congress of Young Muslims of Catalonia, As part of the 16th Islamic Congress of Catalonia, young Muslims from across Catalonia will take part over three days in conferences, debates and workshops on current topics such as mental health, emotional education, family finance, the role of women and men in the family, and female leadership in Islam.
The event is organised by the Union of Islamic Communities of Catalonia (UCIDCAT) and the youth movement Entre Joves., with the collaboration of the General Directorate for Religious Affairs of the Generalitat of Catalonia. This public body (the only one in the Spanish state) It is subsidising UCIDICAT with €64,000 in 2025, twice as much as two years ago.
Five speakers, three arrests
The five speakers announced by the organisation (there will be more) are Taoufik Cheddadi, Hicham Muhammed, Ahmed Bermejo, Amin El Imami, Sakina Saf, Wafae Moussaoui and Yusuf Soldado. The best-known are Wafae Moussaoui, Taoufik Cheddadi and Yusuf Soldado, which will provide knowledge in areas as diverse as Islamic psychology, family education, spiritual training or economics. Cheddadi and Soldado have a total of three police detentions for links to jihadism. although no charges were brought.
Screenshot of the UDICICAT website showing the names of some speakers.
Of the five speakers presented, three have a high public profile and share a common characteristic: They have managed to make Islam their main source of income.. With three very different profiles, they live by preaching and faith. Even, They may be paid from Catalan public funds that subsidise the Union of Islamic Communities of Catalonia (UCIDCAT). to preach at the gathering in El Prat de Llobregat. But beyond the names, police accusations and the monetisation of religion, the question that remains open for the public is inevitable: Who are these experts really, and what contribution can they make to Muslim youth and to Catalan society as a whole? What values do they convey?
Wafae Moussaoui believes that the Prophet is a therapist.
Wafae Moussaoui presents herself as a proponent of ‘Islamic psychology’, but in reality what she does is disguise religion as therapy. Be part of the new generation of educated Catalan Muslims: He studied psychology at the University of Barcelona and an Islamic specialisation in the United Kingdom. Despite being born, raised and living in Catalonia. It has remained impermeable to gender equality values. characteristic of a Western society. As is customary in Salafism, it considers that the cradle and culmination of feminism is the position of women in seventh-century Arabia, based on the preaching of Muhammad.
As a psychology professional, He claims that faith, prayer and the Qur'an are sufficient to address emotional problems.. The underlying message of Islamic psychology is that Muslims should not go to university-trained psychologists, but to Islamic therapists.. This approach discourages access to public mental health services and divides care along religious lines. Some voices They denounce that Islamic psychology is used to keep people within the bounds of faith when they suffer oppression stemming from rigourism.. Under the guise of emotional support, this pseudo-psychology reinforces religious submission, prevents people from questioning the system that oppresses them and closes the loop so they do not leave the community.
In her talks and YouTube videos, Moussaoui often draws on the example of the Prophet Muhammad, whom she presents as a model of ‘emotional intelligence’. According to her, hadiths and passages of the Qur'an offer sufficient guidelines to understand and treat disorders such as anxiety or depression.. This approach not only disconnects from contemporary psychological research, but also attempts to rewrite the history of psychology by situating it within the Islamic religious framework.. Their proposal thus strays from any academic criteria and falls within a confessional discourse masquerading as science.
Congress call poster bearing the seal of the Generalitat of Catalonia
Moussaoui She is the representative of Islamic feminism in Congress. and she demands her own definition of feminism. That is why she has had no problem appearing in videos with Malik Benaissa, which led to the suspension of a similar congress in Torredembarra when it was made public that he would be taking part. The cause of the controversy was the assertion that ‘Any woman who puts on perfume and goes out of her house, parading herself in front of men who smell her scent, is a harlot.’.
Wafae Moussaoui has no problem associating with someone like that, nor does she have any problem giving «feminist» talks at places such as the Islamic Centre of Catalonia in the Clot district of Barcelona. A public report by the Real Instituto Elcano states thatThis mosque maintains links with the Muslim Brotherhood.. She also had no objection to taking part in events funded by the Barcelona City Council where people with disabilities shared real experiences of discrimination. In this context, she denounced the hostile stares she received for her Islamic veil as a form of discrimination equivalent to that suffered by people with physical or psychological conditions that cannot be resolved.
Taoufik Cheddadi: «Islam is more feminist than feminism.»
Taufic Cheddadi is a populariser born in Morocco who emigrated as a young man with nothing in his pockets but He has prospered by making preaching a way of life.. He serves as imam at mosques in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Badalona and Mollet. He was arrested twice in counter-terrorism operations. as his father, who was also an imam but more traditional, had foreseen. When the Town Council of Santa Coloma banned the niqab and the burqa. He opposed it because «wearing the burqa is a matter of religious conviction.».
Cheddadi openly defends that the Islamic religion offers an alternative and superior model to the Western value system. In his speeches Denies the separation between religion and state and dismisses the Enlightenment and laicism as “historical errors”. Portrays European modernity as a decadent civilisation “without spirituality or morality”.”. He advocates an “Islamic modernity” which, according to him, would allow progress without abandoning divine law (sharia). This vision, presented as a legitimate cultural option, actually implies the rejection of the fundamental principles of liberal democracy: individual freedom, legal equality and the primacy of reason over religious dogma. Cheddadi's skill is to present himself as a moderate, a champion of interfaith dialogue and cultural coexistence. But behind the friendly, didactic façade A conservative ideologue is hiding behind pseudo-academic language to legitimise a theocratic, patriarchal vision that runs counter to Western democratic values..
One of the most controversial and revealing points of his thought It is her assertion that “Islam is more feminist than feminism.”. Cheddadi He maintains that genuine female emancipation can only be achieved within the Islamic order., because “God has assigned each sex a specific and complementary role”. In this way, Redefine the concept of feminism to empty it of political content and real equality: it replaces a woman's liberation with her “harmonious” submission.” to divine will and male leadership. Thus, it presents inequality as a “natural difference” and the patriarchal hierarchy as a superior form of justice. This semantic manipulation turns the principle of equality into a mechanism of moral and social control over women.
Furthermore, Cheddadi discredits Western feminism, accusing it of “destroying the family” and of “denying authentic femininity.”. He argues that a woman must find her dignity in obedience and motherhood., whereas the man describes him as a protector, guide and responsible for the family order. This discourse, disguised as “respect for natural differences”, It is profoundly regressive and consolidates gender roles that directly contradict the values of equality and autonomy. that promotes Catalan society.
Their most repeated messages share the same pattern: to exonerate the Islamic religion of any authoritarian or violent practices and shift the blame onto external factors — colonialism, ignorance or the “misinterpretation” of the Qur'an. In various interventions He has gone so far as to compare abandoning Islam to a crime of ’high treason“, suggesting that in certain contexts it may be legitimate to punish it.
He has also shown a revisionist view of the history of Spain, defending that the country must ’accept its Islamic heritage“ and ”reconcile itself with its Muslim identity“. In his programmes he states that “to be Spanish is also to be Muslim.”, attempting to make religion a constitutive element of Spanish national identity. This ideological reading of history seeks to legitimise a conception of public space based on religion and on the moral superiority of Islam over other traditions.
Yusuf Soldado: The Salafist from Mataró
Yusuf Soldado (or Carlos Soldado) is a well-known Islamic preacher from the Maresme region, born into a Christian family but converted to Islam. He has built his discourse on a rigid and patriarchal view of life.. His name has appeared in various media outlets that have portrayed him as the leader of a kind of “Islamic police” in Mataró. It is also recorded that In 2015 he was arrested in a police operation linked to the investigation into radical Islamism., although no public condemnation resulted.
Yusuf has a travel business in Mecca and They are also a social media influencer., where he has amassed thousands of followers. In his videos he speaks openly about religion, society and morality, always from an Islamic perspective. His speech is direct, forceful, and does not shy away from controversial topics.. It is consistent with what it preaches: it follows Islam and the Prophet Muhammad without picking and choosing only what it likes.
In his lectures he maintains that A woman cannot marry without her male guardian., that any relationship outside of marriage is a sin and that “when a man and a woman who are not married are alone, the third is the shaitan” (the devil). Furthermore, insists that the veil is compulsory and that “it is not oppression”, denying the woman's right to freely decide about her own body. In his words, Even sexuality within marriage is part of worship., which turns sex into a religious duty for the woman and not an autonomous expression.
Soldado's message also strays from respect for religious pluralism. He has even gone so far as to state that “JJesus never taught people to be Christians… they were always Muslims..”. . . and describes the Bible as ’incoherent and contradictory“. This exclusive narrative denies the legitimacy of Christianity and Judaism as autonomous religions and presents Islam as the only acceptable path. To this is added its Opposition to universal cultural practices such as music, which it deems forbidden even when enjoyed by non-believers.
His proposal for communal living comes into direct conflict with individual freedom and with coexistence in a plural society. He himself explains that, If a colleague at work plays music, the Muslim should tell them to take it down because “it is haram.”, even if the other is an atheist. In the same way, It is normal for a worker to demand to stop work to pray, without taking into account the organisation of the workplace or respect for others.. This approach, which seeks to impose religious practices on society as a whole, It clashes with the Catalan and European tradition of separating personal beliefs and public space., and turns their presence at events with young people into an influence incompatible with the values of freedom and coexistence.
Radical Islam with the support of the Generalitat of Catalonia
The congress is presented as a space for training and fellowship for Catalan Muslim youth, but the programme reveals another face: proponents who question gender equality, who disguise religion as science, who project an excluding vision of society and that they have even had encounters with the police as detainees. There is no trace of interreligious dialogue, freedom of conscience or inclusion, which the Department of Religious Affairs proclaims as the pillars of its work.
The contrast is evident: the guest speakers spread a regressive discourse that has nothing to do with the values of pluralism and respect that should guide institutional action. Instead of fostering coexistence, References are offered that reinforce gender hierarchies, close identity borders and fuel a narrative of permanent grievances.. The result of exposing young people to these discourses is a disconnection from Catalan society and placing them at the centre of ever-increasing demands on the rest of society.
The scenario is even more worrying if we take into account that the very Department of Religious Affairs… has recently published a study showing that young Muslims in Catalonia are increasingly conservative, more offended and more inclined towards rigid views.. The attendees at the Muslim youth congress will be young men and women living in the West but who adopt ideas opposed to Western values. With all this, A plan is being drawn up to reinforce that every young person becomes a militant of Islamic identity and a spokesperson for constant grievances, precisely the classic strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood.. In this context, the Generalitat endorses a discourse that helps to strengthen an ideology which seeks to keep young people trapped between faith and resentment.
More about Catalonia
ERC, PSC and Comuns oppose combating political Islam in the European Parliament.
Lleida bans the burqa except if worn for religious reasons
The Generalitat pays tribute to the racist Abu Bakr al-Turtuxí as an anti-racist icon
Who is Fatiha El Mouali, much more than the helpless immigrant from the newspaper ARA
Transcription of Ramon Cotarelo's speech in Ripoll for the 2026 Diada
Barcelona City Council spends 44,000 euros to "learn about the Muslim practices we carry within"«
Islamic marriage in Catalonia requires a guardian to authorize the woman
More Perceptions of
ERC, PSC and Comuns oppose combating political Islam in the European Parliament.
Azerbaijan expels students who wear Islamic headscarves from school
Sharia law in the US is supported by 75% of Muslims, 41% of atheists and up to 20% of Christians.
France now has a halal meat supply without the need to sacrifice animals facing Mecca.
The United Kingdom gives away a thousand hijabs in six months to immigrants arriving via the Channel
US Muslim politicians train Canadian Muslims under the slogan "From the mosque to the city hall"«
Teacher fired in Austria for denying a Muslim woman a prayer room
Canadian government normalizes Islamic prayer during workday
Lleida bans the burqa except if worn for religious reasons
Italy bans burqa and niqab but only in schools
The Generalitat pays tribute to the racist Abu Bakr al-Turtuxí as an anti-racist icon
A student residence in Scotland imposes Islamic law in common areas
Kazakhstan threatens to close private schools that allow hijab
A Catholic university in Belgium incorporates Islamic chants into the opening mass of the course
A Muslim family in Granada chooses a Catholic school and demands that the courts teach Islam there
Phrase of the Week
Image of the Week
-Don't you have cousins?