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Muslims pray at Colosseum, protesting against Rome mosque closures
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Hundreds of Muslims prayed next to Rome's Colosseum on Friday to protest against the closure of makeshift mosques, calling on city authorities to protect their religious rights.
Worshippers knelt on prayer mats and tarpaulin on the pavement meters away from the ancient amphitheatre. Some held placards reading "Peace" and "Open the mosques".
At least 1.6 million Muslims live in Italy but there are only a handful of mosques officially registered as such with the government.
Most worship takes place in houses and Islamic cultural centers - a development that some right-wing politicians have said makes them difficult to monitor, raising the risk of radicalization, particularly in the wake of militant attacks across Europe.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in August that "mini mosques in garages" should not be allowed.
The rights group that organized the demonstration, the Dhuumcatu Association, said police have closed three improvised mosques in Rome in recent months.
Attaching placards to a lamp post near the Colosseum, Sikdir Bulbul, a 41-year-old Bangladesh-born Italian citizen who has lived in Rome for 16 years, said the mosque he helped establish in 2012 had been shut down in September.
"Friday prayer is very important to us so today we have come to the Colosseum. Otherwise where else can we pray?" he said.
A spokesman at city hall had no immediate comment.
Right-wing Roman politician Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy party, who came third in a mayoral election this year, has called for Muslims to be obliged to pray in Italian.
The Dhuumcatu Association said there needed to be clearer rules on setting up mosques.
"We are sick of the criminalisation of our places of worship," it said on its Facebook page. "There are no relevant regulations, and we cannot invent solutions independently of the authorities."
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Additional reporting by Gabriele Pileri; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Muslims pray outside Colosseum after closure of mosques
October 22, 2016 Updated: October 22, 2016 12:09 AM
http://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/muslims-pray-outside-colosseum-after-closure-of-mosques
Rome // Several hundred Muslims staged a protest prayer outside the Colosseum in Rome on Friday over what they see as unfair restrictions on their freedom to practise their faith in Italy.
Organisers said they had called the demonstration following the recent closure on administrative grounds of five makeshift mosques.
Many Italian Muslims suspect local authorities are responding to a climate of mistrust caused by recent extremist attacks in Europe by closing down the places of worship on the grounds of easily resolved problems such as the number of toilets on a particular premises.
"We feel people are pointing the finger at us," said Francesco Tieri, a convert to Islam who acts as a coordinator for a number of Islamic groups.
"There is no political will to recognise that we are here and that we are a peaceful community.
"We are forced to rent places to pray – which for us is like breathing air, if we can’t do it we die."
According to official figures there are just over 800,000 Muslims living in Italy legally. An estimated further 100,000 are living in the country permanently without official papers.
That would suggest the community makes up more than 1.5 per cent of the population and that Islam is the second most followed faith in the mostly Roman Catholic country.
Islam however is not recognised as an official religion, unlike Judaism or the Mormon faith, and many Muslims from north Africa and South Asia feel discriminated against on the grounds of both race and religion.
Rome is home to the biggest mosque in the western world but proposals to construct traditional-style mosques elsewhere have frequently run into opposition from local councils who can withhold planning permission on any number of technical grounds ranging from the size of proposed parking facilities to the architectural harmony of a particular neighbourhood.
Right-wing parties have called for a blanket ban on any mosques built with funds from donors outside of Italy.
* Agence France-Presse
