A radical Texas-based Islamist preacher was blocked from speaking at the University of Oslo in Norway after Denmark barred him entering its territory because of his support for terrorism and extremist rhetoric. Ustadh Mohamed Baajour, a Lebanese-born imam and director of the East Plano Islamic Centre in Texas, had been scheduled to address the Muslim Student Association on August 21.
Baajour, who was banned from entering Britain in January 2026, was scheduled to speak at the University of Oslo on August 21 for the Muslim Student Association, which advertises itself as Norway’s largest student organization.
The Al Khaleel Institute, which organized the event with the students’ association and the NGO Innocents Norge, bragged on its Instagram feed that tickets for the talk had “almost sold out” and that there were “only four days to go” for the lecture.
Denmark’s Ban Prevents Hate Preacher from Entering Schengen Zone
Organizers said the event would go ahead as planned even after Denmark updated its national sanctions list on August 14 and added Baajour to its roll of “religious preachers banned from entering” the country “for reasons of public order.”
Both Denmark and Norway are part of the “Schengen Area” comprised of European countries that have abolished routine passport and border checks at their shared internal borders.
According to EU regulations, a formal entry ban issued by one Schengen member country typically applies to the entire zone and is entered as an alert into the Schengen Information System. While Denmark is part of the EU, Norway is not. However, Norway is in the Schengen Area through a special agreement with the EU.
“The Norwegian Ministry of Justice confirms that if Baajour is listed on Denmark’s national sanctions list of foreign religious preachers, he will be denied entry to Norway,” Norwegian terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp noted. “This illustrates the concrete significance of Nordic cooperation: a Danish entry ban has consequences far beyond Denmark’s borders.”
A day before Bajour’s lecture, the Muslim Student Association announced on Instagram that the event had been cancelled “due to unforeseen circumstances.”
University Rector Rejects Call for Pre-Emptive Censorship
Oslo University insisted that it had cancelled the lecture not because of the content or reputation of the speaker, but because it involved a fee for the event and the involvement of an external commercial party, the Al Khaleel Institute, which also advertises itself as a tour company.
“We became aware today that this event violated our guidelines for lending premises to student organizations. It turned out that there was a commercial actor involved in the event, and that a ticket fee was charged,” Ragnhild Hennum, rector of Oslo University, told Nettavisen. “The event will therefore not take place on our premises.”
Hennum emphasized that the university does not engage in pre-emptive censorship. She said in a statement: “One of the university’s most important tasks is to be an arena for debate and discussion and exchange of opinions. We do not engage in pre-censorship; we will tolerate disagreement and meet it with objectivity and respect.”
Warning that Baajour was a “full-fledged jihadi advocate,” Norway’s Human Rights Service explained that “he is pro-Hamas, a staunch antisemite, goes for the full package when it comes to Sharia punishment methods (amputation, stoning, flogging), and dreams of a world under the banner of the Caliphate.”
The organization asked if the university rector’s response was drafted to avoid what could become an “ideological witch’s cauldron and is therefore pushing technical-practical factors ahead in order to be able to cancel the event ‘painlessly.’”
British Parliamentarian Highlights Bajour’s Hate Speech
[The University of Oslo] should have taken the much more robust and moral stance of banning him from the country on the basis of his extremism
Baajour’s anti-Israel and pro-Hamas comments have been documented on social media and in his lectures. One of these came just weeks after the October 7 massacre, when he praised the “people of Gaza” for “scarring the enemy.” Baajour reportedly eulogized the Gazans who died as a result of the war, saying: “Every true Muslim would love to have such a death.” On another occasion, he reportedly said: “Allah, give victory to the [resistance fighters] everywhere.”
Mohamed’s status as an Islamist extremist should have been enough to force Norway to cancel his event, a spokesperson from Campaign Against Antisemitism told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
“Given Ustadh Mohamed Baajour’s long-documented history of using his position to spew virulent Islamist and antisemitic rhetoric, it is astonishing that the Norwegian authorities cancelled his lecture merely on the basis that the tickets cost the equivalent of £10 or $14,” he said. “
. Even the UK, which has a far-from-perfect record on this, banned him from the country for this reason earlier this year, and we urge countries like Norway to follow suit in refusing entry to radical preachers who promote antisemitic Islamism.”
British MP Nick Timothy called on the government to ban the hate preacher from entering the United Kingdom in January 2026, noting: “Baajour has openly and proudly praised horrific violence. The Islamists here want him to help them remake Britain. We must stop them. The Home Secretary must act and exclude Baajour and every hate preacher from our shores.”
In November 2023, Baajour said the people of Gaza had “given a faith boost to the whole ummah” and “You have reminded us of what ‘honor’ means. Glad tidings!” Timothy posted on X.
In a letter to the home secretary, Timothy noted that Baajour is a director of the East Plano Islamic Centre in Texas, which “has been condemned for its extremism and sued for violating state securities laws.”
Baajour has supported chopping off the hands of thieves and claimed Zionists “want to put their nose in it and ruin it, just like they ruined every other country.” Timothy warned: “Baajour intends to deliver the same fundamentalist, antisemitic poison to our country.”
Timothy asked the home secretary to investigate the charity Muslim Aid for sponsoring Baajour’s tour. In March 2026, an investigation by the Israeli government named Muslim Aid as part of a “significant penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood and its Hamas-linked affiliates, through a network of charities used to fund terrorism, FWI reported.
FWI has contacted the Muslim Students Association and Imam Baajour for comment and will publish any responses when and if they are received.
