POLISH VANDALS DEFACE TATAR MOSQUE

Varsovie, 3 Ramadhan 1435/1 July 2014 (MINA) – A Tatar mosque in Poland has been defaced on Sunday, June 29, with pig graffiti in a sign of provoking Muslims’ sentiments a few months after banning ritual slaughter in the central European country.

“On the eastern side you see a pig – an insulting symbol for our community and our religion – and other insults,” Bronislaw Talkowski, the president of the Tatar community in the village, told a local radio station, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported on Sunday, June 29, OnIslam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Monday.

Located in the eastern village of Kruszyniany, the wooden mosque is located in one of the oldest Muslim cemeteries in Tatar area.

According to the community leader Talkowski, vandals have sprayed pig and other insults on the walls of the wooden mosque near the border with Belarus.

“It is hard to say who is behind it but it is certainly an organized group,” Talkowski added.

The attack was denounced by the provincial governor of regional capital Bialystok, Maciej Zywno, who described it as an “idiot act”.

Zywno added that police investigations are underway.

“We have been collecting information about mosque incidents for some time, and here is our partial list,” he said.

“If you know about other incidents, please contact us with the information,” he urged residents.

Initial investigations have linked the hate crime to the ritual slaughter raw that has been banned since last January.

Poland has about 25,000 Muslims, according to the European Jewish Congress and US State Department estimates.

Ritual slaughter was first banned in Poland in January 2013 after a Constitutional Court deemed it incompatible with animal rights law.

In July, Polish Muslims and Jews expressed anger over a parliament vote rejecting to repeal an earlier ban on halal and kosher slaughter by the European country’s constitutional court.

Poland has 29 slaughterhouses which practice ritual slaughter, employing 4,000 people. The industry is worth $259 million in exports, according to 2013 figures.

Islam considers pigs unclean because they are omnivorous, not discerning between meat or vegetation in their natural dietary habits unlike cows and sheep for instance, which eat only plants.

Muslims do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat filthy and unhealthy to eat. (T/P012/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)