Ljubljana has 2850 church bells, but not a single minaret

CAIRO, May 2 (IslamOnline.net) – For more than 35 years the 50,000 Muslims living in the E.U. newcomer Slovenia have been yearning for just one mosque to pray in, in a country that boasts at least 2850 churches, a French newspaper reported Saturday, May 1.

In the capital Ljubljana, the Muslims only have a small prayer room, which is bursting at the seams, the daily Liberation said.

"I have immigrated to Slovenia years ago and my children were born here; yet, we don’t have a mosque," said Fudail Lutwi, a 50-year-old Bosnian.

Haris Darjanovic, 27, agreed that Muslims suffer many hardships, especially during Eid and Ramadan congregational prayers.

"We usually gather in small flats, which have been turned into secret Islamic centers. They are 15," he told the French daily.

Osman Djogic, the mufti of Slovenia, said six different places across the capital have been proposed since 1969 for building a mosque, but to no avail.

"Every time the authorities come up with a different excuse to rebuff our requests," he lamented.

"Now, the issue lies in the hands of the mayor."

Church Opposition

The mayor of Ljubljana, Danica Simšič, said the problem was raised 35 years ago and faced with strong opposition from the Catholic Church.

She also heaped the blame on a prevailing sense of "irresponsibility".

"No body wants to live up to his/her responsibilities," she charged. "All people should be fully aware of the fact that Slovenia has become a mosaic of cultures and religions."

Bishop Franc Rod has recently voiced his opposition to constructing the mosque, said the French paper.

The priest said he is against the establishment of a "political center representing another culture on the land of Slovenia".

The city’s municipality issued on December 8, 2003, a license to build a mosque, which was put on hold after the extremist right-wing launched a counter-campaign, collecting 12,000 signatures against the measure.

Mihal Jarc, a right-wing member, argued that an Islamic center would pose a threat to the Slovenian identity and could lure more Muslim immigrants to the "fragile and small" country, which gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Under Slovenia’s laws, a public referendum will be held in the capital on the construction of the mosque on May 23.

Polls showed 67 percent of Ljubljana residents are in favor of building the mosque, but the percentage dwindled to 51 percent after the right-wing’s campaign.

Muslims in Slovenia, one of the ten newcomers to the European Union, represent some 2.4 percent of the country’s two million people population.