Cuba Rejects Plans for First Mosque

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Foundation (TDV) sent a delegation to Cuba to discuss building a mosque in its capital Havana. Having paid a visit to the Cuban department of religious affairs, TDV assistant manager Mustafa Tutkun sought permission to begin work on the mosque, which will be designed after the famous Ortakoy mosque in Istanbul. The mosque would have been completed within a year, Tutkun said. The land for the mosque has already been allocated in the city’s Old Havana district. [1] Tutkun said that the design of Ortakoy mosque would fit in nicely with the architecture of the surrounding area. The plan is part of a wider project by the TDV in building mosques for Muslims who live in the Caribbean. [2] After receiving the assistance from Turkey’s Religious Affairs Foundation, the Muslims community in Cuba, went on to push the Cuban government to allow for the building of the country’s very first mosque. [3]  Some of you will probably think that Castro would jump at the chance to hear the sound of the adhan, which Hussein Obama calls the “most beautiful sound in the world”. [4] Cuba’s communist government has turned down a plan to open a mosque in the capital Cuba.  Pedro Lazo Torres, the leader of Havana’s Muslim community, revealed that his joint efforts with Turkey’s Religious Affairs Foundation (TDV) to open a mosque in Havana was rejected. [5]  According to World Bulletin, Pedro Lazo Torres, who organizes Muslim prayers at his home in Havana and leads the tiny community, announced that plans to build a mosque in the city have come to a halt– not because of any problems with the sponsor group, the Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation, but because the communist Cuban government opposes the establishment of a religious center for Muslims in the city. [6] Some have put the blame for this refusal on the “racism of progressives.”  [7] Torres expressed his dismay at the decision, nothing that Russia was granted permission to build an Orthodox church in the country but 4,000 Muslims in Cuba still have no official place of worship. [8] Cuban Muslims have until now had to make do with performing congregational prayers in Torres’s living room. [9] Cuba’s persecution of religious groups, believed to be anathema to the tenets of the Marxist Cuban Revolution, has persisted into the 21st Century. While Cuba did approve the construction of a Catholic church this year– the first church built on the island since the Revolution– it has also undertaken mass arrests of Catholics for worshipping in the public eye. In a particularly violent incident last July, the Cuban government arrested 100 women for participating in a mass commemorating the victims of the March 13 Tugboat Massacre, in which the Cuban government drowned 47 men, women, and children fleeing the island. It should be reported that even though there is no official mosque in Cuba, there is an official building that allows for Friday prayers. Islam Awareness reported on a building known as the Casa de los Árabes (The Arab House), a remodeled building which houses an Arabic museum and Arabic restaurant. Remodeling was given a boost when Qatar donated $40,000. Also, the building is used for Friday prayers, but only for non-Cuban Muslims, tourists, and diplomats. [11]