By: Peter Truden, Janja Strah
“The Iranian Revolution has infused Muslim and Arab nations with positive energy. It has motivated them to take revolutionary actions that help them achieve their goals.” This is what Faila Pašić Bišić told the Palestinian press agency Qoods a decade ago during a conference on the role of young Muslim activists, which was organised by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to Pašić Bišić, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is a great model for the rest of the world on how to bring about change, how to make Muslim countries more united, and how to form a strong Islamic government. Only then could Islam “firmly stand up to the challenges facing the Islamic ummah.” Ummah means the community of all Muslims and thus of the Muslim world. In other words, it is a kind of global caliphate.
Faila Pašić Bišić, introduced by the Qods Agency as the Director of the Slovenian-based NGO for Intercultural Dialogue between the East and the West, spoke to the Agency on the sidelines of a major international conference on the role and function of young Muslim activists in the process of the Muslim Islamic Awakening Movement. The Royal Elcano Institute, a Madrid-based think-tank, writes that it is precisely this ‘awakening’ that has influenced the influx of large numbers of Islamic migrants to the old continent and, consequently, the radicalisation of Muslims in Europe, which is an immediate security threat which, in addition to foreign intelligence services, is also being monitored by Europol.
In short, if the information provided by Nova24TV, which cites a reliable source, is correct, the whole affair between Golob and the Islamist activist in question is not only a blatant case of partisan staffing, but also an illegal leak of information from an intelligence agency, which constitutes a security threat to the country. Moreover, if Golob did indeed warn Pašić Bišić about the monitoring and suggest restricting their electronic communication, this could have an impact on the Slovene Intelligence and Security Agency’s cooperation with foreign security agencies, which would restrict its access to shared information on security risks.
It is also worth noting that the Qods Agency (also known as Quds) is apparently named after the Iranian Quds unit. The latter is an elite wing of the Islamic revolutionary guard corps, which operates mainly abroad. Established shortly after the Iranian revolution, its activities focus on organising, supporting and conducting operations abroad in ways that are in the interests of the Tehran theocracy. In 2020, the then-US President Donald Trump ordered an attack on a target near Baghdad International Airport. Quds Commander Qassim Suleimani was killed in the attack.
Faila Pašić Bišić was long unknown to the Slovenian public, although she was already very active internationally. She first attracted attention in 2014, when she stood as a candidate for the European Parliament on the list of the Concrete party (Konkretno). “She is the second Muslim woman with a headscarf to run for a position in the European Parliament, after the Greek Anna Stamou,” foreign media reported at the time.
In 2015, she made headlines when, at the “anti-racist” “Refugees, welcome in Ljubljana” rally in Prešeren Square, she ordered the police to remove Klemen Zbačnik and his friend from the steps of the Franciscan Church because they were holding signs reading “Europe is a Christian continent” and “Stop the Islamisation of Europe.” It became clear then that she was an extreme Islamist and against freedom of speech.
According to Nova24TV, the Muslim activist is now frantically searching for the culprit who leaked the information about her job arrangement. There is also the question of how the information that she is being investigated by the Slovene Intelligence and Security Agency for her links to the Islamic Republic of Iran (and also to Iraq) got to the Prime Minister in the first place. This is certainly a very delicate matter, because it shows that Slovenia is an unreliable partner in the exchange of intelligence and security information with foreign security agencies.
It seems that Slovenian Democratic Party MP Žan Mahnič, who said last year that seeing Golob in the company of Pašić will bring to Slovenia “the Islamisation and shariaisation of Slovenia and the mass importation of Arabs,” was right.