{"id":7296,"date":"2011-09-16T14:08:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7296"},"modified":"2011-09-18T13:04:58","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T17:04:58","slug":"muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","title":{"rendered":"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Muslims on Friday defied a new French ban on outdoor group prayer, filling the streets and sidewalks of\u00a0 some neighborhoods to kneel on prayer rugs and observe the Islamic requirement for five-times-daily prayer while facing Mecca.<\/p>\n<p>The ban came into effect on Friday, which is the Muslim weekly holy day &#8212; the equivalent of the Sabbath for Jews and Sunday for Christians.<\/p>\n<p>The French government announced Thursday it was prohibiting group prayers in public areas. Such mass prayers have\u00a0blocked sidewalks and halted traffic\u00a0around French mosques. Why such a ban?<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"Muslims pray in the streets of France\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j9vm4bv6zk4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>Officials had\u00a0pledged to enforce the ban beginning Friday.<\/p>\n<p>At least\u00a0200 Muslims ignored the ban in the neighborhood of La Goutte d&#8217;Or, the French newspaper <em>Le Parisien<\/em> reported. Other Friday prayers also occurred as usual &#8212; with pedestrian and vehicular traffic coming to halt. There were no reports of arrests.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>New York Post<\/em> reported that when French interior minister Claude Gueant announced the ban, he said he had nothing against Islam. &#8220;Street prayers must stop because they hurt the feelings of many of our compatriots who are shocked by the occupation of the public space for a religious practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The ban angered some French Muslim leaders. Others were cooperating with local officials to find acceptable venues for group prayers &#8212; instead of using public sidewalks and traffic lanes.\u00a0 From Paris to Marseille, Friday&#8217;s midday prayers were scheduled in disused barracks\u00a0and other temporary buildings. Authorities in the southern city of Marseille on Thursday said they would provide a 1,000-square-metre building for Friday prayers.<\/p>\n<p>France, home to Europe&#8217;s largest Muslim population, in April banned the face-covering <em>burqa<\/em> and barred schoolgirls from wearing head-scarves in public school classrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Muslims on Friday defied a new French ban on outdoor group prayer, filling the streets and sidewalks of\u00a0 some neighborhoods to kneel on prayer rugs and observe the Islamic requirement for five-times-daily prayer while facing Mecca. The ban came into effect on Friday, which is the Muslim weekly holy day &#8212; the equivalent&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55,978,354],"tags":[357,2208,2207,2223],"class_list":["post-7296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islam","category-muslims","category-prayer","tag-france","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hundreds of Muslims on Friday defied a new French ban on outdoor group prayer, filling the streets and sidewalks of\u00a0 some neighborhoods to kneel on prayer rugs and observe the Islamic requirement for five-times-daily prayer while facing Mecca. The ban came into effect on Friday, which is the Muslim weekly holy day &#8212; the equivalent&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-16T18:08:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-09-18T17:04:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers","og_description":"Hundreds of Muslims on Friday defied a new French ban on outdoor group prayer, filling the streets and sidewalks of\u00a0 some neighborhoods to kneel on prayer rugs and observe the Islamic requirement for five-times-daily prayer while facing Mecca. The ban came into effect on Friday, which is the Muslim weekly holy day &#8212; the equivalent&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-09-16T18:08:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-18T17:04:58+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers","name":"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-16T18:08:18+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-18T17:04:58+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/muslims-fill-french-streets-sidewalks-defying-ban-on-public-mass-prayers#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muslims fill French streets, sidewalks, defying ban on public mass prayers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7296"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7300,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7296\/revisions\/7300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}