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Greek mosque plans cause friction
by Richard Galpin
BBC News (29.07.2003)/ Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The small Greek town of Peania nestles in the hills north of the capital, Athens, close to the new international airport.
It is an unremarkable place, and an air of boredom hangs over the central square.
But not for much longer.
If the Greek Government has its way, the town will become the focus for tens of thousands of Muslims living in the capital with the construction of the first proper mosque in the Athens area for almost 200 years.
The Foreign Ministry is pushing hard for a large mosque and Islamic cultural centre to be built before the Olympics get under way in just over a year's time.
More than 30,000 square metres of land have been set aside for the buildings which will be paid for by Saudi Arabia at a cost estimated at millions of dollars.
The Greek Government is acting partly out of shame, particularly with the approach of the Olympic games which are already putting the country under the international spotlight.
"Athens is the only capital in the European Union without a mosque," Foreign Minister George Papandreou admitted in a recent statement.
Makeshift mosques
It is an extraordinary fact that not a single mosque has operated officially in the capital or its immediate surroundings since Greece gained its independence from the Muslim Ottoman empire in the early 19th Century.
The growing number of Muslim immigrants in Athens from Albania, South Asia, Africa and the Middle-East pray at so-called "underground" mosques which are not properly licensed.
Dozens of these makeshift mosques have been set up in the capital in apartments, shops and garages.
"It's a very bad situation, they are violating our human rights," says Mohammed Ashad, a Pakistani immigrant who has lived in Greece for six years. "We must have a right to practise our religion and it must be in a proper mosque."
Mohammed was speaking after completing his prayers at an underground mosque in the city centre.
It is in a dingy, run-down apartment block with a staircase which stinks of urine.
The room which masquerades as a library, is too small for the busiest prayer-time of the week on Fridays when people spill out into the hall and down the stairs.
"It's very strange because Greece is inside the European Union and will be in the centre of Europe with the inclusion of 10 more countries," says Mohammed, "and yet there's no official mosque."
Plan rejected
Ambassadors representing Arab countries have been trying to persuade the Greek Government to build a proper mosque for almost 30 years. They are now certain they have succeeded.
"All the preparations are complete, " says Abdullah Abdullah, the Palestinian representative in Athens. "The Greek Government gave its approval, the Arab side is ready for the construction and the Greek church has given its blessing."
But back in the town of Peania where the mosque is to be built there is fury amongst the local population.
The town council has rejected the plan and mayor Paraskevas Papakostopoulos has appealed to the courts to block the building of the mosque, arguing it is illegal to use the land for construction.
"Almost 100% of the population here is opposed to the mosque," he says. "We were never asked if we wanted it and this region is not suitable."
Historic fear
The mayor is particularly concerned that the mosque will be seen by visitors as they land at Athens airport.
"This is a problem for us as the first impression visitors will have will be something not representative of Greek culture. They will feel they have arrived in a Muslim country."
Officially the Greek Orthodox Church, which dominates the country's religious life, has said it does not oppose the new mosque.
But amongst the clergy in Peania there is a very different view.
"I cannot conceive of this mosque being built here," says parish priest Father Antonios Milakis. "At the Islamic centre they will train and ordain Muslims and they will try to convert people of other faiths."
It seems this fear of Islam is rooted in history.
"Greece and the Greeks link Islam or Muslims with the Turkish occupation of the country [which lasted] for centuries and this resentment is still there," says Abdullah Abdullah.
But ironically even the Muslims themselves are opposed to the mosque being built in Peania.
The town is 20 kilometres from the centre of Athens and most say they will not be able to go there for their daily prayers as it is simply too far away.
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Greek Muslims to set up TV station soon
by K. S. Ramkumar
Arab News (21.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (27.05.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Greek Muslims, who have three Islamic radio stations and newspapers, will soon launch their own TV station, according to a three-member team of Greek muftis currently in Saudi Arabia.
With the first Islamic TV station and other media, we hope to campaign effectively against the bad publicity Muslims in the West have been getting, Metso Tzamali, a member of the team, told a press conference at the Greek Cultural Center here yesterday.
The Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent smear campaign against Islam have not adversely influenced the small but growing Muslim minority in Greece. On the contrary, the minority Muslim community has become strong and is slowly but steadily growing, Tzamali said.
Tzamali, mufti of Komotini, who is accompanied by Mohamed Sinikoglu, mufti of Xanthi, and Muhammet Serif, mufti of Didimotiho, said the countrys Muslim community numbered 130,000 in a total population of 10.5 million and was very concerned about terrorism and violence in different parts of the world which are blamed on Muslims.
All three muftis are judges of the countrys Shariah court, which resolves the problems of Muslims. While Serif obtained his Islamic education in Thessalonica, the two other muftis obtained their Islamic degrees from Madinah more than 25 years ago.
Emphasizing that there was no discrimination against Muslims in overwhelmingly-Christian Greece, Sinikoglu said terrorism and violence blamed on Muslims had not soured relations between the two communities. Like Muslims the world over, we condemn all terrorist and violent acts, he said.
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Greek hermit rebel monk killed
AP (09.02.2003)/ HRWF Int. (12.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A 25-year-old hermit monk died after accidentally driving his tractor off a cliff in an attempt to dodge police who have barricaded the rebel monastery, authorities said Sunday.
The incident occurred early Saturday in the Orthodox Christian sanctuary of Mount Athos, where the rebel Esphigmenou monastery has been sealed off by police since Jan. 29.
Police said the monk, Tryfonas, who lived in solitary quarters, tried to retrieve a tractor outside the monastery grounds during the night to avoid police detection and drove off the side of a cliff.
Esphigmenou's 117 monks are defying an eviction order imposed because of their fierce opposition to efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
They were ordered to leave the monastery after Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew--spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians--last year declared the monks ``schismatic.''
The 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou is one of 20 active monasteries on Mount Athos, a peninsula in northern Greece from which all women are banned.
Police, who have orders to expel anyone who leaves the high-walled monastery, briefly lifted their cordon Sunday so that male relatives of the dead monk could attend his funeral inside the grounds of Esphigmenou.
The monastery's abbott has said Esphigmenou's monks will defy the eviction order, and have water and food enough to last two years.
Greece in standoff with rebel monks
by Deborah Kyvrikosaios
Reuters (01.02.2003) / HRWF Int. (04.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Greek authorities are locked in a standoff with more than 100 rebel monks vowing "Orthodoxy or death" after cutting off power, water and food supplies to their monastery and surrounding it with police.
The ultra-orthodox monks, residents of the country's Mount Athos all-male holy preserve, have denounced moves by the Greek Orthodox church's spiritual leader, Patriarch Bartholomeos, to forge closer ties with the Roman Catholic Church and condemned him as a heretic.
Now under an eviction order to leave their centuries-old monastery, the priests have vowed to resist any moves to force them out.
"We will fight with our prayer beads," said Father Methodios, abbot of the Esphigmenou monastery, toying with his rosary. "It has 300 knots, these are our 300 bullets. We wage a spiritual war," he told a news conference this week.
The authorities on Friday ruled out using force to evict the monks in a bid to end the months-long row that has its roots in the 11th century Great Schism which led to the breaking apart of Christianity as Orthodox followers battled Roman Catholic authority.
Mount Athos, a peninsula of dozens of monasteries in northern Greece from which all females are banned, is regarded as Orthodox Christianity's spiritual home.
"We will not use force. But they are fanatics and have broken off communication with the rest of the community," a spokesman for the Holy Community of Mount Athos told Reuters.
Mount Athos authorities have already cut off food, water, fuel and mail to the Esphigmenou monastery, adorned with black flags and banners reading "Orthodoxy or death", in a bid to bring the rebels to their knees.
Monks seek reprieve
The monks are considered the most radical, bordering on fanatical, in their opposition to Rome. They also refuse to recognise the authority of the Greek Orthodox Church.
"We cannot accept seeing the Patriarch, our Patriarch, in this position of giving communion to Catholics, Protestants and some say other religions," Fr. Methodius said.
He has appealed to Greece's highest court, the Council of State, for a reprieve from an eviction that had been scheduled to take place last Tuesday until the legal challenge. A court official said it could be weeks before a ruling.
Although Bartholomeos is based in Istanbul he has spiritual rule over the peninsula that is run by a council of monks representing its centuries-old monasteries. Mount Athos is administered by an official appointed by Greece's ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Orthodox followers, who say they adhere more closely than Roman Catholics to the words and teachings of Jesus Christ, are the dominant church in Greece and mainly eastern Europe nations as well as Russia.
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