Objections
Efforts to meet these demands, however, have been stymied by objections from local residents influenced in part by the rise in Russian nationalism since the Soviet collapse.
According to Alyautdinov, a project to add a second building to enlarge the Sobornaya mosque site has been blocked by the absence of “one small signature from a bureaucrat” needed to finish the work.
And fierce protests from residents have thwarted other plans to build an enormous new mosque in the city’s southeast designed to hold up to 5,000 people.
Moscow officials had promised to hand over land in a park to build this new facility. Angry local residents, however, delivered a petition to authorities against the mosque’s construction while a group of anti-mosque activists went further, recently planting trees in the area set aside for the building.
“At the moment we can wander here with pets, have barbecues. But an imam could say: don’t roast pork here, don’t walk your dogs here,” said Mikhail Butrimov, a spokesman for the activists.
“There will be altercations” if the mosque is built, he warned.
Critics, including Sova, a Moscow-based NGO that monitors hate crimes, have linked the protests to xenophobic groups, singling out Butrimov whom they say has been put forward as a candidate in several elections by obscure nationalist parties and does not even live in the neighborhood of the proposed mosque.
Alexei Malashenko, an expert on Islam with the Moscow Carnegie Centre, a think-tank for nonpartisan research and analysis, said the root of the problem is a lack of tolerance among Moscow residents.
“Moscow is a cosmopolitan city… and the city with the biggest Muslim population in Europe. People need to get used to seeing mosques,” he said.
Source: AlArabiya.net
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