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ISLAM

French police probe Facebook call to cut Muslim throats

French police were on Friday trying to identify a Facebook user who urged people "to cut Muslims's throats instead of sheep" during the Eid al-Adha feast, sparking the ire of Muslim and anti-racist groups.

“Police are carrying out an investigation to identify the author of these unworthy declarations,” police said in a statement, adding that the Facebook “wall” page in question had already been taken down. 

Following the posting, the French Muslim Council (CFCM) contacted police and the French anti-Islamophobia Collective (CCIF) contacted the social networking site to have the page removed.  

The offending statement called on the world to mark the Feast of Sacrifice, known as Eid al-Adha, on November 6 by “cutting Muslim throats instead of sheep”.  

“We will finally have a good reason to celebrate,” it said.  

Muslims mark the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca by sacrificing an animal, often a sheep, in remembrance of Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God.  

“This is a lamentable call to murder that could bring about a new Oslo,” Abdallah Zekri of the CFCM told AFP, referring to July’s massacre in Norway carried out by Islamophobe Anders Behring Breivik.  

Zekri noted what he said was a rise in Islamophobia in France since President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party started a controversial public debate on French identity, Islam and immigration.  

“Today it is easy to attack Muslims with impunity,” Zekri said.

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ISLAM

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday

The mayor of Cologne has announced a two-year pilot project that will allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer on the Muslim day of rest each week.

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday
The DITIP mosque in Cologne. Photo: dpa | Henning Kaiser

Mosques in the city of the banks of the Rhine will be allowed to call worshippers to prayer on Fridays for five minutes between midday and 3pm.

“Many residents of Cologne are Muslims. In my view it is a mark of respect to allow the muezzin’s call,” city mayor Henriette Reker wrote on Twitter.

In Muslim-majority countries, a muezzin calls worshippers to prayer five times a day to remind people that one of the daily prayers is about to take place.

Traditionally the muezzins would call out from the minaret of the mosque but these days the call is generally broadcast over loudspeakers.

Cologne’s pilot project would permit such broadcasts to coincide with the main weekly prayer, which takes place on a Friday afternoon.

Reker pointed out that Christian calls to prayer were already a central feature of a city famous for its medieval cathedral.

“Whoever arrives at Cologne central station is welcomed by the cathedral and the sound of its church bells,” she said.

Reker said that the call of a muezzin filling the skies alongside church bells “shows that diversity is both appreciated and enacted in Cologne”.

Mosques that are interested in taking part will have to conform to guidelines on sound volume that are set depending on where the building is situated. Local residents will also be informed beforehand.

The pilot project has come in for criticism from some quarters.

Bild journalist Daniel Kremer said that several of the mosques in Cologne were financed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “a man who opposes the liberal values of our democracy”, he said.

Kremer added that “it’s wrong to equate church bells with the call to prayer. The bells are a signal without words that also helps tell the time. But the muezzin calls out ‘Allah is great!’ and ‘I testify that there is no God but Allah.’ That is a big difference.”

Cologne is not the first city in North Rhine-Westphalia to allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer.

In a region with a large Turkish immigrant community, mosques in Gelsenkirchen and Düren have been broadcasting the religious call since as long ago as the 1990s.

SEE ALSO: Imams ‘made in Germany’: country’s first Islamic training college opens its doors

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