Muslims pray at the Moscow
Congregational Mosque in central Moscow
on the Feast of the Sacrifice.
Moscow city authorities are about to announce the allocation
of plots of land for three new mosques in the city, but ethnic Russian
nationalists have voiced their protests saying that no one asked local
residents before passing this decision.
"
We need to ask local residents. We should follow the
European practice of taking local opinion into account in everything.
” Aleksander Belov of the Russkiye movement told the press.
In his opinion such practice would ensure that everything goes in a peaceful
and calm manner.
Belov’s statement came as a comment to a newspaper article
that stated that Moscow city
authorities will soon allocate land for the new mosques. The Izvestia daily
referred to a representative of a public movement called Spiritual Directorate
of Muslims of European Russia who said that the exact sites are already fixed
and thanked the city for paying attention to his co-believers.
In the same article the newspaper quoted top city officials
who doubted the efficiency of the step. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that the
city needs no new mosques, adding that the majority of those who attend Muslim
sites are unregistered labor migrants and once they are dealt with the need for
new sites would disappear. The Speaker of the Moscow City Legislature Vladimir
Platonov noted hat apart from discussing new places of worship with religious
representatives, those responsible must poll local residents and base the
decisions on the local mood.
Interestingly, after news agencies spread the report, the
city authorities refuted it. The head of the city department for investment in
construction wrote a letter saying that the land plots for new mosques have not
yet been negotiated. The official added that the mayor’s office has a special
working group determining the need for various religions in the city’s many
districts, but this group has not yet taken any decisions whatsoever regarding
mosques.
According to the latest poll, the proportion of Muslims
among Russians has reached seven percent this year compared to just four
percent in 2009. The share of Russian Orthodox Christians is now 74 percent
compared to 80 percent in 2009.
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