x

Society

Three Muslims Arrested in Greece for Building Prayer Room

July 7, 2019

While there are scores of unofficial prayer rooms throughout the country and a state-paid first official mosque is set to begin operation in Athens in the autumn, three Muslims were charged for adding a prayer room to a prefabricated building.

Ilyaz Gundogan Ahmetoglu, the imam of the Drosero (Serin Mahalle) neighborhood in the city of Xanthi, was arrested with two other people, Ahmet Hraloglu, a local Muslim cleric, told the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

Xanthi is part of Greece’s Western Thrace region, which has a population of some 150,000 Muslim Turks dating back centuries and Hraloglu said the three were arrested while trying to add a small section to their prefab so they could pray there, the news agency added.

He added that the prefab structure was meant to house the neighborhood’s culture association and that the arrests were made for unauthorized construction.

Those charged were said to have been released by a court on condition that the group’s administrators get the necessary construction permits and documents within a month.

Hraloglu said the court warned that if work continues without authorization, they could face a fine of up to €50,000 ($56,158.)

Amhetoglu said that Drosero lacks a proper mosque, forcing local Muslims to do their obligatory prayers at makeshift sites which has been happening for years at makeshift places such as basements and industrial buildings.

RELATED

Cretans are known for loving their guns but the island has the dubious record of having the highest rates of suicide in Greece over the last 25 years, averaging 2.

Top Stories

Columnists

A pregnant woman was driving in the HOV lane near Dallas.

General News

NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.

Video

Over 100 Pilot Whales Beached on Western Australian Coast Have Been Rescued, Officials Say

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — More than 100 long-finned pilot whales that beached on the western Australian coast Thursday have returned to sea, while 29 died on the shore, officials said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Weinstein's landmark New York sexual assault conviction was thrown out by an appeals court Thursday, and most of the dozens of civil cases filed against him since he became a central target in the #MeToo movement in 2017 have either been settled or dismissed.

NEW YORK (AP) — After prosecutors’ lead witness painted a tawdry portrait of “catch and kill” tabloid schemes, defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial are poised Friday to dig into an account of the former publisher of the National Enquirer and his efforts to protect Trump from negative stories during the 2016 election.

ATHENS - Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday referred to the excellent and close cooperation with the Church in the context of its institutionally defined framework, from the town of Dilesi where he visited, along with Archibishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos, structures of the Holy Archdiocese of Athens.

Enter your email address to subscribe

Provide your email address to subscribe. For e.g. [email protected]

You may unsubscribe at any time using the link in our newsletter.