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A heated debate has raged in the southern British city of Brighton after Muslim prayers were pronounced at the start of the city council’s meeting.
A heated debate has raged in the southern British city of Brighton after Muslim prayers were pronounced at the start of the city council’s meeting, with supporters defending the practice as reflecting the city’s diversity.
“I’m surprised and disappointed at the negative responses of Councilor [Christina] Summers and other councilors,” Bill Randall, Mayor of Brighton and Hove City, told Muslim News.
“Brighton and Hove is a diverse city and one of my aims as Mayor is to celebrate this diversity while bringing the cities faiths closer together.”
The controversy started when religious leaders were invited by mayor Randall to lead the council’s prayers in December.
Muslim prayers were among prayers told ahead of the council’s meeting.
But the Muslim prayer drew fire from Summers, an independent councilor who was expelled from the Greens group earlier this year after voting against a same-sex marriage bill.
“To think it’s against diversity is nonsense. Prayers are not part of proceedings – councilors do not have to attend,” she said.
“As far as I’m aware there are no Muslim or Arabic-speaking councilors, so I just wonder what the point was.”
The council also went to Twitter to express her anger.
“Baffled & concerned that Muslim prayers from the Qur’an were sung in Arabic at Thursday’s Full Council. How many B&H cllrs are Muslim anyway?”
Telling prayer before British councils meetings is a centuries-old tradition.
Diversity
But city councilors defended the decision to pronounce the Muslim prayers at the meeting, calling on opponents to respect the city’s diversity.
“I believe there should be prayers that everyone can understand before a council meeting but I thought that was too much,” Conservative Councilor Dawn Barnett said.
“Everybody seemed a bit overwhelmed by it.”
Labour Councilor Warren Morgan shares a similar opinion.
“When Councilor Summers voted against my motion supporting equal marriage, I said that although we totally disagreed with her views, we should respect her right to hold them as they were based on her faith,” he said.
“It is disappointing therefore that she is unwilling to accept or tolerate other faiths and beliefs, and it may be time to question whether she should remain a councilor in our diverse and inclusive city.”
There are nearly 6,000 Muslim residents in Brighton.
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority, estimated at nearly 2.5 million.
The majority of the multi-ethnic minority has Indian, Bengali and Pakistani backgrounds.
In 2011, think tank Demo found that Muslims in the United Kingdom are more patriotic than the rest of population.
Responding to the statement “I am proud to be a British citizen”, 83% of Muslims said they are proud of being British.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/europe/461505-muslim-prayers-divides-brighton-council.html
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