France Bans Public Prayer

[jimmy olsen]

Human rights? What are those? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/europe/paris-begins-enforcing-ban-on-street-prayer.html

Little Protest in Paris as a Ban on Street Prayer Begins

By REUTERS
Published: September 16, 2011

PARIS (Reuters) — A ban on street prayer came into force on Friday, driving thousands of Muslim worshipers in northern Paris into an improvised prayer site in an old fire brigade barracks, angering a small but vocal minority.

The prayer ban has highlighted France's difficulties in assimilating many of its five million Muslims, who often lack spaces to pray, and it follows a long-smoldering dispute fanned by the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The Interior Ministry under Claude Guéant has directed Paris's Muslims to temporary spaces made available pending the construction of a new space and warned that force would be used if necessary as the police enforce the ban.

Seven months before a presidential election, the ban has struck some in France as an attempt to rally the far right to President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right camp.

At the fire barracks, Sheik Mohammed Salah Hamza oversaw prayers for Muslims who had arrived from all over the city. Worshipers streamed in, spreading their woven prayer mats over the floor of the hangarlike building and out into the courtyard.

"It's the beginning of a solution," Sheik Hamza told Reuters before the start of the service. "The faithful are very pleased to be here. The space, which holds 2,000, is full."

Many worshipers were also upbeat. "This will be better than Rue Myrha," said one man, referring to a road in Paris where street prayers often take place. "Apparently, it shocked people."

Ms. Le Pen has described the growing phenomenon of praying in the streets and sidewalks as an "invasion."

"It's Marine Le Pen who started all this," a woman who gave her name as Assya said on her way into the former barracks on the outskirts of Paris.

In France, where a strict separation of church and state has been in force for a century, public displays of religious activity are frowned upon.

Yet efforts by Mr. Sarkozy's conservative government to restrict religious displays, like a prohibition on full-face veils, have drawn criticism as empty measures that unfairly single out Muslims.

France counts the largest Muslim minority of any European country. Yet only a portion — about 10 percent, or the same proportion as the devout among Catholics — are practicing, according to Muslim associations.

As a rule, militant Muslim voices in France are rare, but the Friday Prayer in northern Paris drew a small but angry protest.

An hour before the first prayer, young men with beards, green headbands and banners gathered on Rue Myrha to discourage worshipers from moving to the new site.

"No system in the universe can control us aside from Allah!" shouted one young man.

Another said, "There is more dignity in praying in the grass than in their false mosque."

As the prayers began, dozens of young men belonging to a group called Forsane Alizza disrupted the service and jostled with security officers.

[Richard Hakluyt]

You understand that they pray in the street, thus obstructing traffic?

[Solmyr]

Human rights have nothing to do with this. Prayer or other religious rituals absolutely do not belong on a public street.

[Solmyr]

This is a repeat of what happened a short while ago in Russia, btw: http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/30/muslims-in-russia-pray-in-the-streets-to-celebrate-eid-al-fitr/

[Iormlund]

I didn't realize blocking traffic is a human right in the US. You guys are a weird bunch.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm with the Timmy bashers on this one.

[Ed Anger]

I think Timmay just reads the headlines.

[jimmy olsen]

I think Timmay just reads the headlines.

I usually read the whole thing.

[Ed Anger]

You suck at it then.

[CountDeMoney]

I think Timmay just reads the headlines.

I think he just reads the back of the cereal box.

[CountDeMoney]

"No system in the universe can control us aside from Allah!" shouted one young man.

Lol, funny.


Maybe the unemployment rate for Muslims in France wouldn't be so high if they weren't praying all the fucking time.

[Neil]

This is perfectly reasonable, given their situation.  If people insist on using their prayer as a weapon to harass and annoy, then it will have restrictions placed upon it.

[garbon]

I saw a Law & Order episode the other day from 2002 - where a white boy gone muslim was preaching about the 20,000 arabs killed by America vs. the 2,000 Americans dead on 9/11.  Then yesterday I saw a nation of islam type who had gathered a group and was loudly saying "They talk about the Americans killed on 9/11, but do you know how many Arabs, America has killed in its wars?"  Sad.

[Ideologue]

I saw a Law & Order episode the other day from 2002 - where a white boy gone muslim was preaching about the 20,000 arabs killed by America vs. the 2,000 Americans dead on 9/11.  Then yesterday I saw a nation of islam type who had gathered a group and was loudly saying "They talk about the Americans killed on 9/11, but do you know how many Arabs, America has killed in its wars?"  Sad.

Why is it sad?  We're 10-to-1.

[Eddie Teach]

You understand that they pray in the street, thus obstructing traffic?

Couldn't they just be ticketed for that instead of for praying?