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Thursday 23 Jul 2015 - 10:26 Makkah mean time-7-10-1436
Proposed site of Muslim Cemetry (The Herald image)
Rock Hill (IINA) – A proposed Muslim cemetery in Rock Hill, a city of South Carolina, U.S., was shot down Tuesday night by the city’s zoning board of appeals, after a contentious public hearing where several residents opposed a Muslim cemetery in their neighborhood, The Rock Hill Herald Online reported.
The decision drew a few claps and short applause from a packed City Council chambers room filled with people against the cemetery, including one woman who admitted that she was not “politically correct” or “nice” but was scared at what would go on inside a proposed Muslim cemetery fence.
Muslim leaders in the city were dismayed by not just the vote, but what they said was perceived prejudice against Muslims.
“What I heard here was that we are Americans and have rights, but we as Muslims do not have the right to bury our dead,” said Nazir Cheema, a decades-long Rock Hill resident and leader of the effort to build the cemetery. “If this cemetery did not have the word Muslim, it would have been different. Are we not Americans? Do we not love America? Yes, we do,” he noted.
Only one person – while not mentioning the Muslim religion – expressed concerns that “nobody knows what would be going on in there,” behind a fence.
The woman said she knew her remarks were not “politically correct,” and “not nice,” but felt the need to make them during the public meeting.
Members of the Islamic Center of South Carolina, which operate a mosque in Rock Hill, want the cemetery to bury their dead in traditional Islamic fashion, but the zoning board voted three for, three against, which left the measure defeated.
City planning officials told the zoning board they saw few problems with the cemetery – but the board still axed the idea.
Tuesday’s decision came despite a city lawyer telling the zoning board that federal court decisions have made it clear that local governments have to cross a high threshold for not granting religious institutions opportunities to practice their style of worship under religious freedom laws. The board even went into executive session for a short time to receive legal advice from the city’s lawyer on the issue, but still the cemetery failed when the board came out and voted in a tie.
Muslims pointed out that the cemetery would have no monuments and would not be seen from the street or neighboring properties because of a tree and bush wall, plus a 10-foot fence that would be built to shield the flat spot from the public. The Muslim cemetery would have been Rock Hill’s first.
“I was born here in Rock Hill, raised here, live here, and will die here, but apparently I can’t be buried here,” said James Jumah Moore, executive director of the Islamic Center. “It hurts me that my city would not see us as equals.”
Muslim officials say they are disappointed but will not be deterred.
“I am not discouraged,” said Moore the executive director. “When we wanted to build our mosque we had many, many times we had to go through this. We will have a cemetery.
AB/IINA
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