A bitter row has blown up in east London over a secretive Muslim organization's plan to build Europe's largest mosque a stone's throw from the city's 2012 Olympic zone.
If officials grant planning permission, the mosque -- in the deprived but diverse district of West Ham in east London -- will hold up to 12,000 worshippers and feature facilities including a school and conference center.
But the plan has drawn furious opposition from some politicians and locals, with 280,000 people signing a petition against it on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street Web site earlier this year.
Many complaints focus on Tablighi Jamaat, the media-shy Muslim group behind the proposed development of the 7.3-hectare Abbeymills site, and which mosque opponents and some British press reports claim has links to Islamic extremism.
The movement strongly denies the allegations, but a fog of mutual hostility whipped up by the row has increased both the alienation of Muslims who feel their religious needs are not being met and the anger of opponents who accuse them of insularity.
It also taps into the nation's agonized debate over the position of Islam in a Christian, though increasingly secular, society which began in earnest after the 2005 London bombings.
"I'm not anti-Muslim -- I want to engage with Muslims rather than just shouting at each other through megaphones on the issue," said local councilor Alan Craig, who is leading opposition to the plans.
While its opponents are eager to discuss why the "mega-mosque" should not be built, arguments in favor are less easy to uncover.
Reporters and photographers are barred from the proposed site, currently home to a temporary mosque in a shabby building with a plastic roof. It is located near the main park for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The gatekeeper referred press queries to mosque elder Saulat Sikander, who failed to respond to an interview request. Nick Kilby of Indigo Public Affairs, which is handling media calls on the mosque, also declined to talk, referring queries to its Web site.
Some answers were available a few minutes away on Green Street, a busy shopping area with halal butchers and fabric shops and in the shadow of football club West Ham United's ground.
The area is heavily Muslim -- accounting for roughly a quarter of the local borough's population, according to the most recent census in 2001.
Many Muslims in the street declined to comment on the plans. But a local Islamic bookshop worker who declined to be named said the new mosque was needed because of chronic overcrowding.
"There are thousands of people in this area -- they're praying in houses, in sheds, in portakabins," he said.
Two other large mosques built in the area in recent years had rapidly become overcrowded, he said, predicting that a new one would draw worshippers from across the capital.
Councillor Craig -- a committed Christian who is a member of the Christian People's Alliance Party -- stressed that his objection was not to Islam, but specifically to Tablighi Jamaat, which he described as "backward" and "fundamentalist."
Despite the storm over the plans, the proposed mosque does have some powerful supporters -- a spokesman for the Greater London Authority, headed by Mayor Ken Livingstone, hit out angrily at the Downing Street petition.
"The particularly vicious nature of the campaign against a possible Muslim place of worship in east London should be condemned by all of those who support the long-established right of freedom of religion in this country," he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was