Slovenia starts work on first mosque after wait of over 40 yrs
- September 14, 2013, 8:01 pm
- World News
- 125 Views
LJUBLJANA, Sept 14 (APP/Reuters) - The foundation stone of
Slovenia's first mosque was laid at a former industrial site in
the capital Ljubljana on Saturday, more than four decades since
the first official petition was submitted by Muslims seeking
their own place of worship.
The initiative has been beset by administrative hurdles and
a lack of political will in the mainly Catholic country of two
million people, of which some 50,000 are Muslims.
Several thousand people attended the ceremony, including
Slovenia's centre-left prime minister, Alenka Bratusek, and
Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Jankovic, who helped lay the first stone.
A handful of women in the crowd wore headscarves - an
unusual sight in the Alpine ex-Yugoslav republic, a member of
the European Union squeezed between Croatia, Italy and Austria.
"This means the world to me," said Sahra Kacar, 44, who was
born the same year as the first official petition to build a
mosque in Ljubljana was filed. "We will have a proper place to
pray, rather than using various public halls."
The most prosperous of Yugoslavia's six republics, Slovenia
saw an influx of people from across the region - including
Muslims - seeking work over the past 50 years, particularly with
the collapse of their joint state in the early 1990s.
Slovenia broke away in 1991 and its economy boomed, while
the likes of Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo descended into war.
The proposal for a mosque had been held up by reluctant
local officials, some of whom tried to force a referendum on the
matter in 2004.
Some 12,000 people signed a petition calling for a
plebiscite, but Slovenia's Constitutional Court ruled it would
be unconstitutional on the grounds of religious freedom.
"We are happy to be starting this civic project in
Ljubljana, which will thus become a better-known and a more
pluralistic city," Mufti Nedzad Grabus, the highest
representative of Slovenia's Islamic community, told the
ceremony.
Construction of the mosque is expected to begin in earnest
in November and is projected to take three years at a cost of
some 12 million euros ($15.9 million). The Islamic community
will foot most of the cost, thanks to a large donation it
expects from Qatar.
