Road on mosque land irks community

A woman walks past a mosque in the capital’s Daun Penh district yesterday, where a plan to build a road through the land has angered the area's Muslim community. Heng Chivoan

Road on mosque land irks community

Mon, 2 May 2016 ppp

Kong Meta

A plan to build a road through land belonging to a mosque in the capital’s Daun Penh district has drawn the ire of the Muslim community in Srah Chak commune, who yesterday were gathering signatures to petition municipal authorities.

“Now we collected around 100 [signatures] . . . The Phnom Penh authorities have not shown us the latest exact building plan,” Sles Nazy, president of the Cambodian Muslim Media Center, said yesterday, explaining that the primary concern was the proximity of the new road to the house of worship.

“The noise is going to be so annoying. We Muslims need calm and quiet when we are praying,” he said, adding that the land in question was given to the community by the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk.

City Hall administrative director Meas Chanyada yesterday said the mosque would be compensated with an equal amount of land on the other side of its compound, and insisted the community would come around to the positives of a road in lieu of a garden.

“The mosque will develop, too, so it is complimentary,” he said, adding that Muslim officials in the government would mediate the dispute.