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Prayers in front of churches: “If it had been Muslims, the police would have disembarked”


Yacine Laoudi is the president of the association of the Muslim cult of Aulnay-sous-Bois (ACMA) which manages the great mosque of this city. Normally, nearly 3,000 faithful pray in this place of worship! For the man – also the head doctor of the hospital service – the president must authorize religious gatherings, during his speech scheduled for Tuesday, provided that a maximum number of faithful is established. And he tackles the difference in treatment between cults by the authorities.

How is the reconfinement going in terms of Muslim worship?

Yacine Laoudi. It is complicated. We have already experienced this, during the first confinement. First, spiritually speaking, because people need to come together to pray, especially in these dark times. There is also the increasingly worrying financial question. The money is used to maintain the premises, to pay the rents in certain cases… However, the donations of the faithful are made at the time of the prayers, especially on Fridays and obviously, during Ramadan. If next year’s one (Editor’s note: which begins mid-April) can not stand because of third wave, it will be a disaster.

What do you expect from Emmanuel Macron’s announcements this Tuesday?

That he authorize religious gatherings, with a gauge of faithful to respect. In between the two confinements, we were able to organize ourselves. In Aulnay-sous-Bois, the mosque that I manage can accommodate 2,800 people in normal times. With sanitary measures, it’s 800 people, separated by 1.5 meters. Ablutions must be done at home, everyone must bring their Koran, that of the mosque is no longer accessible. Ditto for the prayer rugs. And the place is disinfected regularly thanks to our volunteers. Our exemplary nature must influence the government in the direction of a reopening. My mosque has not been the scene of any major contamination, nor any church, that I know of!

What do you think of the closure of the Pantin mosque, examined this Monday morning at the Council of State?

It is an absurd collective sanction. If his manager and his imam – whom I do not know – have done something reprehensible: that they be punished according to what the law dictates. But the faithful (they are 1300 in Pantin), they are the ones who drink! Especially since if religious gatherings are authorized again, this will pose a problem: the hundreds of Pantin’s faithful will have to go to other mosques to pray. And while we must restrict the number of people per place of worship, it is counterproductive. There is a kind of double penalty here.

What do you think of these images of Catholics gathered to pray in front of their church and demand their reopening?

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