{"id":50419,"date":"2014-09-23T14:41:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T14:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=50419"},"modified":"2014-09-23T14:41:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T14:41:40","slug":"cape-town-shuts-pro-gay-mosque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=50419","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town shuts pro-gay mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\">South Africa&#8217;s first gay-friendly mosque, which also allows women to lead prayers, has been closed indefinitely, a local official has told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>A City of Cape Town councillor says the newly-established Open Mosque had violated municipal by-laws by not having any parking spaces.<\/p>\n<p>The mosque officially opened its doors on Friday despite criticism from members of the local Muslim community.<\/p>\n<p>Founder Taj Hargey said the mosque would help counter radicalism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are opening the mosque for open-minded people, not closed-minded people,&#8221; he said ahead of the launch.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Taj Hargey\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/77696000\/jpg\/_77696811_bbctajhargey7887.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Taj Hargey denies going against Muslim teaching<\/div>\n<p>City councillor Ganief Hendricks denied that the closure was part of a witch-hunt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an emotive issue &#8211; some councillors who are Muslim would want to defend the issue more vigorously than those that aren&#8217;t but the bottom line is we have to make sure that the rules are followed,&#8221; he told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>He said Mr Hargey had not applied to change the use of the building from a warehouse to a mosque.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are issues of health and safety to consider before [a mosque] is set up,&#8221; Mr Hendricks said.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman listens to the sermon during the opening of the Open Mosque, on September 19, 2014 in Wynberg, Cape Town.\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/77705000\/jpg\/_77705441_63b00ac5-193c-4b59-973e-117cebfb7dfe.jpg\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Women will be allowed to preach and pray alongside men<\/div>\n<p>A local by-law stipulates that a place of worship should have one parking bay per 10 worshippers on the premises but Mr Hendricks said there were not any.<\/p>\n<p>The process of applying for the necessary paperwork could take up to six months, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hargey told the BBC that he believed everything was in order.<\/p>\n<p>Women are allowed to pray alongside men, as well as lead prayers, at the mosque.<\/p>\n<p>Some local Muslim condemned him as a &#8220;heretic&#8221; but Mr Hargey said he was following true Islam.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s first gay-friendly mosque, which also allows women to lead prayers, has been closed indefinitely, a local official has told the BBC. A City of Cape Town councillor says the newly-established Open Mosque had violated municipal by-laws by not having any parking spaces. The mosque officially opened its doors on Friday despite criticism from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":50420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-50419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}