Opposition to mosque

last updated 8 January 2015

Athens

A government plan to build a mosque for the use of Muslim athletes and visitors at next year’s Olympics has provoked a storm of protest in Greece. Athens has had no mosque since the end of Ottoman rule in the 19th century, and is the only European capital without one. So King Fahd of Saudi Arabia donated millions of dollars to build a mosque in Peania, near the Athens airport. But Peania Mayor Paraskevas Papacostopoulos said residents in the area, still smarting from 500 years of Ottoman oppression, would react “very badly” to a minaret in their midst. “We will not be able to control them,” he said. The Greek Orthodox Church has complained that putting a mosque near the airport could give foreigners the wrong impression about Greek religious beliefs. But the Greek government said it would go ahead with construction “in the spirit of multicultural, democratic Europe.”