MUSLIMS TO SUE GEORGIA OVER MOSQUE BLOCK

Atlanta, 12 Safar 1436/5 December 2014  (MINA) – A no-vote to a new mosque in a suburban Atlanta city has angered the Muslim community, who are considering a lawsuit over the mosque’s rejection as a violation of their religious freedom.

“It’s been our experience that any time a Muslim community anywhere seeks to expand or establish a mosque or some other kind of institution, there will be some type of opposition,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.

“When you scratch the surface, often there is a tremendous level of bigotry and stereotyping in the opposition,”. On Islam quoted Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Hooper’s comment on mosques in the US followed the decision of the City Council in Kennesaw, Georgia, to deny a mosque application on Monday night in a 4-1 vote.

According to the city spokeswoman Pam Davis, the decision was issued because zoning regulations do not allow places of worship in that particular shopping center.

“It’s a land use issue,” she said on Tuesday.

Muslims rejected this argument, seeing the rejected application as an attack on the group’s First Amendment rights.

“We think it’s discriminatory, and it violates equal terms,” Douglas Dillard, an attorney for the Muslim residents, told the Marietta Daily Journal.

“They had no reason to deny this,” he said, adding that residents might file a lawsuit challenging the council’s decision.

The city spokeswoman acknowledged a Christian church had been allowed to operate within another shopping center in Kennesaw, a city of 30,000 residents about 30 miles northwest of Atlanta.

But that location had “completely different zoning” than the one where the Muslim residents are seeking to establish a prayer center, Davis said.

All across the US, mosques have been facing fierce opposition recently.

At least 18 mosque projects — from Mississippi to Wisconsin — have found foes who battle to stop them from seeing light citing different pretexts, including traffic concerns and fear of terrorism.

Even more, some mosques were vandalized including a 2011 Wichita mosque arson case for which a $5,000 reward is being offered.

In multicultural New York, a proposed mosque near Ground Zero site has snowballed into a national public and political debate, with opponents arguing that the Muslim building would be an insult to the memory of the 9/11 victims.

Advocates, however, say that the mosque would send a message of tolerance in 9/11-post America. (T/P007/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)