Geneva: Fake call to prayer, mosque attacked

Geneva: Fake call to prayer, mosque attacked

As it turns out, the anti-minaret vote coincides with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

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For the second time in the past ten days, two weeks before the anti-minaret vote, the Petit-Saconnex mosque (Geneva), filed a complaint by the police.

On Saturday, Nov. 7th, the residents were woken up at 7AM by a call to prayer organized by the right-wing group Jeunes identitaires genevois (JIG). The call was made through a megaphone mounted on a car (JIG video here).

JIG chose Saturday since the Muslims organized an open day in mosques across Switzerland that day.

JIG justified their action, saying they needed to inform the people. "We want to show that in case the initiative is rejected, we're de-facto accepting that in a few years such calls will echo in Switzerland," they told Swiss newspaper Le Matin.

This past Saturday night, the local mosque was pelted with stones. The windows, shutters, wooden door and granite dome of the entrance were broken, said the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, Youssef Ibram. Ibram said that the police took away several kilos of stones in order to check for fingerprints and DNA.

This is the first time in 30 years that the mosque has been vandalized, the imam said. He linked it to both the fake muezzin call and to the minaret vote initiative.

The mosque hired a security guard to guard the mosque at night.

Sources: Tribune de Genève, Romandie (French)