Roselands mosque in Australia reopens for worshippers after 10-year dispute

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Monday 18 May 2015 - 11:02 Makkah mean time-29-7-1436 Khodr Saleh, Deputy mayor of Canterbury City Council Sydney (IINA) – The Canterbury Provincial Council on Thursday approved a license to reopen a mosque in Roselands, a suburb in south-western Sydney, Australia, for worshippers for seven days a week instead of just three days. The Muslim community considered the decision a victory over a 10-year-old incitement campaign, carried out by anti-Muslim racist groups against the establishment of a mosque in the area. Khodr Saleh, the Muslim deputy mayor of Canterbury City Council, who led the mosque campaign for the license endorsement, said that the previous decision to open the mosque for worshippers for only three days was unfair. At a raucous municipal council meeting, attended by scores of residents opposing the mosque's license, Saleh stressed that obstructing Muslims to perform their prayers and religious rituals sends a negative and erroneous message about the Australian community. He said that it was the duty of the Australian municipalities to facilitate the licenses to construct schools, mosques and places of worship for Muslims to practice their religious rites, like other non-Muslim religions. Canterbury province is one of Sydney's provinces, where a high proportion of Muslim community lives, which is considered the highest nationwide. According to the 2006 Australian Census of Population, there were approximately 340,000 Muslims in the country, of whom nearly 130,000 were born in Australia, their families hail from 27 nationalities. It is noteworthy that the Muslim community in Australia is still suffering from racist and unfair practices and attitudes by a number of politicians and members of local municipalities, who seek to block the construction of mosques and Islamic schools, as well as cemeteries in Australia under the pretext of "traffic crisis", or because, as they say, “they threaten Australia's lifestyle, and allow the promotion of Muslim influence in the country." AB/IINA