ICHIKAWA: Islamic prayer was cancelled at a city park event in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture after social media backlash over a previous congregational prayer.
Ethnic dishes were served in the park, and participants later joined a cleanup. Mosque representatives said city officials allowed the park’s use only if the usual 10-minute congregational prayer was not held there.
Mosque representatives said the city directed them not to hold the usual 10-minute congregational prayer when they applied to use the park.
The restriction followed a March social media uproar after a video of a Ramadan prayer in the same park spread online.
Some posts created the misleading impression that the earlier prayer had taken place without permission.
Prayer leader Naveed Muhammad said pork products were later thrown onto mosque property, and the mosque received a letter implying a possible attack on Muslims.
Ichikawa City’s parks division said simple congregational prayer did not amount to proselytising, but the city later sought changes to the park-use application.
The city and the mosque reached a compromise allowing the event to proceed only if worshippers prayed inside the mosque or on its grounds.
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Senior mosque official Abdullah Miyazawa said the community did not understand why a previously permitted prayer practice had suddenly become unacceptable.
Ichikawa Mayor Ko Tanaka said at a May 29 news conference that he did not want the city to become “a city where Muslims gather in parks for congregational prayers.”
Masahiro Unaki, an administrative law professor at Kagoshima University, said a restriction could be understandable to prevent disruption or aggressive protests, but appeared unjustified if based on the religious nature of the activity.
