(top: NY Post-bottom: Le Parisien-with a little help from Mad)
In response to citizen complaints about Muslims taking over public streets to conduct Friday prayers, the French government issued a ban on such activity this week. Today, about 200 Muslims defied the ban. Below is an article by the New York Post. It contains a link to a French report from Le Parisien.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/muslims_defy_outdoor_prayer_ban_SLqYjChIoIHvXE3t9XYhTM
Something's gotta give here, don't ya think?
Hopefully, it won't come to this:
7 comments:
This is the Muslim definition of "Freedom of Expression" or of Religion or of Speech, etc. Essentially, we are going to do what we damn well please no matter what the laws, customs, or culture in their host country.
This what you get when you open your borders to Muslims just as this is what you get when you vote Liberal Democrats into office.
Call the UN, the French have no working fire hoses.
It solves the solution. Muslims decide to worship in the streets, the French turn the hoses on them.
I think I would defy the ban too.
Do you think you have a right to take over a city street or sidewalk, block off pedestrians and cars without a permit from the city?
In my city, and in most cities I am familiar with, anyone can get a permit to close off their block to traffic and hold a party. In New York, I have been on city buses that took ten minutes to navigate a single block, and only got that far because of the combination of precisely skilled and agressive driving displayed by the bus operator, when people attending an Episcopal Church service were ALLOWED to double park while at a worship service.
In short, this is done all the time in many places, and nobody complains that the foundations of post-Enlightenment civilization are being threatened.
France has a history of passing militantly secular laws that would never pass muster in the United States, not under the First Amendments, and not under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, nor under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (co-authored by that great liberal, Orrin Hatch, and that dastardly conservative, Edward Kennedy). These laws forbid wearing yarmulkes as well as hijabs, so at least they apply equally to all, but they are equally wrong.
So Muslims pray five times a day. That is free exercise of religion. If they stopped wherever they are (short of in the middle of a crosswalk when the light changes), I would be supportive. This is a block in front of an over-crowded mosque. It is called standing room only, overflow. People spill out onto the sidewalk in all kinds of venues all the time. What's so different about this because it happens to be Muslims?
The city should speed up the permits to build a larger house of worship so they can all get off the sidewalks.
Most block parties here are in suburban areas. The concerned street in Paris are urban. The important point is that they are praying without permits. Have you not seen previous videos (here) that show how they set up their own security, rope off the street and restrict access? These are streets with businesses and residences.
The photos you show now portray people kneeling and praying, not security shoving people away.
If someone who lived on a street were barred from walking to their front door by unofficial "security," that would be the time to file an immediate complaint and arrest the individual "security" people in question.
Then, if someone of the CAIR school wailed that this was Islamophobia, that could be debunked. One the other hand, if the security primarily informed voyeurs with news cameras that "people don't want to be photographed praying" that is entirely understandable.
As for permits, you live in the suburbs, so of course most block party permits in your area are suburban. I live in a city, where block party permits are held on all kinds of urban streets, although not on THE main thoroughfares. The point of defying the ban is that they were DENIED permits.
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