Ulster Unionists Block Mosque

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday January 17, 2003 12:48 by Shane OCurry - Pat Finucane Centre pfc at iol dot ie

UUP councillors are opposing the building of masjid in Portadown

The January 14 issue of The [London] Times features a story about how the construction of Northern Ireland's first-ever purpose-built masjid is being blocked by Ulster Unionist politicians. Please do read the story and if you feel that the Unionists are acting in an unfair and discriminatory manner then please email them or contact them. Remember to be firm but always polite. Their details are as follows: Email: uup@uup.org Address: 429 Holywood Road, Belfast BT4 2LN, UK Tel: 028 9076 5500 Story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-542149,00.html

From Times Story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-542149,00.html

January 14, 2003

Unionists protest against building of Ulster mosque
By David Lister, Ireland Correspondent

THE construction of Northern Ireland's first purpose-built mosque is being blocked by Unionist politicians who say that residents would be kept awake by "wailing" and that Muslims are plotting to destroy Christianity.

For years a small Muslim community near Portadown, Co Armagh, has observed the antics of Orangemen during the annual marching season in the mid-Ulster town. Blending into the most famously hardline Protestant area of Northern Ireland, a province that remains 99.15 per cent white, according to the 2001 census, was always going to be tricky for the two dozen Muslim families who live here. Many of them work at the hospital or run takeaway food shops.

But after years of minding their own business, they have spoken out after Unionist councillors objected to their plan for a mosque in a field outside Portadown. One councillor claimed that the development could pave the way for an al-Qaeda terrorist cell in the area.

Fred Crowe, an Ulster Unionist councillor and former Mayor for the Craigavon area, said that residents in Bleary believed that their way of life would be threatened if the mosque were built. Mr Crowe said that encouraging Muslims to settle in Craigavon might open the door for militants.

Although outline planning permission has been granted for the £200,000 mosque, which is to be funded by the Muslim community, final approval has been delayed after Unionist councillors voted for it to be reconsidered.

Woolsey Smith, who represents Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party,
said: "They say it's not going to be an eastern-type mosque and there'll not be the wailing noise calling these people to worship but we don't know about that. I would be worried for residents in the area as to just what they will be confronted with."

Like other Unionist councillors, Mr Smith claims the mosque, proposed for a boggy field three miles outside Portadown, will cause sewage problems and heavy traffic on the country road leading to it, even though Muslims say that their community is at most 200-strong in Craigavon.

Mohammad Yousaf, a retired draper who came to Northern Ireland 15 years ago, said that Muslims had used a community centre for their Friday prayer meetings since a makeshift mosque was burnt by vandals five years ago.

Adam O'Boyle, a Roman Catholic who converted to Islam four years ago, said that the Province's insularity meant that many people found it difficult to cope with other walks of life and different ethnic groups.

Mohammad Ashraf, a Pakistani whose family came to Northern Ireland 27 years ago and who owns the land on which the mosque will be built, said: "We don't want to fall out with anybody but we want the mosque. It will be a simple building that will blend in, with just one dome, not too many minarets. They'll be no wailing, no call to prayer. Who is going to listen around
here anyway? Cows?" "