Muslims in the United States are facing hurdles to get approval for the construction of new mosques in wake of rising anti-Muslim sentiments driving local administrations in various towns and cities to unfairly deny them the right to build places of worship.
However, as Muslims fight the legal battle for their right for the freedom of worship in courts, the US Department of Justice is trying to end the discernment against Muslims by filing law suits against towns and cities refusing permissions to construct mosques.
Last week, the Department of Justice punished Bernards Township in US state of New Jersey to pay $3.25 million to settle a lawsuit for denying the construction of a Mosque. The department has also opened investigation into denial of a mosque in Bayonne, another city of the same state.
A special report last year showed to the US Department of Justice had pointed out a sharp increase in the number of its investigations into religious bias involving mosques or Islamic schools over the past six years. The department opened 17 investigations involving Muslim groups under the Religious Land Useand Institutionalised Persons Act, which protects groups from discernment in land-use decisions.
The report quotes “particularly severe discrimination faced by Muslims in land use.” It notes that 84 percent of investigations that don’t involve Muslim issues ended in a positive resolution without any lawsuit compared to only 20 percent of cases involving mosques and Islamic schools.
Adeel Abdullah Mangi, an attorney representing Muslim groups in Bernards and Bayonne lawsuits told a local newspaper about hate being spread by Anti-Muslim elements.
Anti-mosque fliers were put in children’s mailboxes at school. The church basement where they used to pray was spray-painted with slurs and curses. A “stop the mosque” Facebook page has drawn hundreds of followers and bigoted comments.
“How much uglier can it gets than that?” said Mangi. “Municipalities around the country should pay close attention to what happened in Bernards Township,” he said. “The American Muslim community has the legal resources, the allies and the determination to stand up for its constitutional rights in court and will do so.”
