“We don’t want a mosque.” It is one of the slogans that 200 people chanted on Sunday on Alacant Avenue in Lleida, in the Cappont neighborhood. They were protesting against the purchase of a space for an oratory with capacity for 200 people by the Ibn Hazm Muslim community, the largest in the city. In front of them, 70 people demonstrated against that concentration, responding: “You are racists. “It’s not because of the mosque.” The exchange of slogans against each other lasted three quarters of an hour. The concentration against the mosque had been called by residents of the neighborhood and the counter-concentration by 18 entities, including CGT.
The mayor of Lleida, the socialist Fèlix Larrosa, made an institutional statement yesterday calling for tolerance and dialogue. He told those who “are afraid about the operation of the center” that the City Council guarantees the right to religious freedom, to the public expression of their feelings, and will be demanding compliance with the regulations that allow the establishment of a center. cult with the conditions in which it is being proposed. He has also defended the work of the neighborhood association, of which he has said that he is receiving attacks from people who disagree with the entity’s function.
Larrosa insists that the Paeria government “is committed to a model of worship centers based on dispersion and proximity.” “Different centers have opened in the city and surely everyone has had their nervousness, but in the end they are carrying out their activity with absolute normality,” he remarked.
Abdellatif Láatabi, spokesperson for this Islamic community, insists that the oratory will serve the Muslims of Cappont after others have been opened in most neighborhoods. In view of the most massive prayers, those on Fridays, the group negotiates with the City Council the transfer of land in an industrial estate.
The manifesto of the opposing neighbors contemplates that this is a place of passage with little space, that the neighborhood is considered a flood zone and that “it is proven that in the places where oratories are placed the cadastral value of the properties is devalued.” In front of the premises was the Vox councilor Josep Roca, while Nogay Ndiaye, CUP deputy in the Parliament and resident of the neighborhood, participated in the opposite concentration. “We want to demonstrate – she stated – that those who protest against the mosque do not represent the entire neighborhood, the rest of us are committed to coexistence.”