Muslim Prayer Calls Echo Through Detroit Suburb; Petitioners Unhappy
by Chad Groening
June 7, 2004
(AgapePress) - Some residents of a Detroit-area town hope that an August ballot initiative will send a strong message to the Muslim community that they do not want to hear Islamic calls for prayer broadcast five times a day over loudspeakers. In the meantime, citizens will have to call the police if they don't like the noise.Hamtramck, Michigan, remains embroiled in the loudspeaker controversy, as non-Muslims have successfully put a city council ordinance amendment into abeyance until voters decide the issue. Following approval of the council's amendment -- which exempts the prayer calls from a local noise ordinance -- citizens gathered a sufficient number of signatures on a petition to bring the issue to a vote. But local mosques have gone ahead with plans to broadcast the calls to prayer -- albeit at a somewhat subdued volume.
Resident Bob Golen, one of the petition organizers, says he is not surprised that the mosques have decided to broadcast the prayer calls anyway.
"Right now the call is muted. Hopefully it will stay that way," Golen says. "We're hoping that we get a big enough election turnout to show these people where we're coming from and [that] we mean business -- and hopefully they'll decide on their own to back off of it."
Golen explains that the ordinance would give mosques complete latitude as to how loud they want to turn up the volume -- and that's why the referendum is important, petitioners say.
"You feel somewhat defeated [because the prayer calls have started], but of course I knew this was going to happen," Golen says. "The writing was on the wall."
According to Golen, the council tried to explain to those opposing the ordinance that there was nothing that could be done to stop the prayer calls anyway, and that the ordinance was merely an attempt to get control of the situation. But the ordinance permits the mosques to determine what is "too loud or not right,' he says, adding that no decibel level is defined in the ordinance.
Golen says right now, residents of Hamtramck still have the recourse to call the police and file a complaint if the prayer calls get too loud -- and a successful referendum, he says, would keep it that way.
