LONDON: Mosques in the UK are increasing their online presence and adapting the services they offer this Ramadan to help Muslims stay connected to their local places of worship amid the coronavirus lockdown.
They will be broadcasting special talks, Qur’an recitals and prayers for worshippers to listen to during the holy month, when Muslims aim to increase worship, acts of charity, gratitude, self-discipline and self-improvement.
Mosques during Ramadan usually heave with worshippers who break their fasts together at sunset and perform the Maghreb prayer shortly after.
Congregation members gather again for the Isha and Taraweeh prayers later on after it is completely dark outside.
The other prayers are also attended by more people, as Muslims who would usually pray at home or not at all strive to connect to God and practice their faith better during the holy month.
This year, however, mosques in the UK are closed to worshippers in line with government restrictions that aim to curb the spread of coronavirus.
British mosques are being advised to increase their digital presence so that members of their congregation remain spiritually linked to their local mosques at a time when they are unable to attend them.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has encouraged mosques to find ways “to be a virtual hub of community activism,” and to “continue to offer support” to worshippers.
The East London Mosque and London Muslim Center, which had an online presence long before the pandemic and has a room dedicated to broadcasting online, is livestreaming Islamic talks daily between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. during the holy month.
The mosque’s imams and guest speakers will speak about a variety of Ramadan-related topics, and listeners can tune into these on the website, by downloading the broadcasting app Mixlr, or on Facebook.
“The East London Mosque has taken steps to keep up people’s spirits during Ramadan,” media and communications manager Khizar Mohammad told Arab News.
“Our daily online talks, by both resident imams and guest speakers on a variety of topics, will replace talks that used to be held after the Asr prayer at the mosque.”
The Qur’an is divided into 30 parts, and during Taraweeh prayers the imam will recite approximately one of these parts so that the entire holy book is recited over the course of Ramadan.
Given that all congregational prayers have been suspended, the mosque is broadcasting live recitation of the Qur’an daily so worshippers who would normally have listened to the entire book during Taraweeh prayers can still listen to it during the month.
“Sheikh Mohammed Mahmoud will recite one part of the Qur’an everyday live on our Mixlr channel between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.,” Mohammad said.
In addition to this, the adhan (call to prayer) will be broadcast, and the sermon for Friday prayers can be viewed on the mosque’s YouTube channel.
The mosque usually provides iftar to more than 500 worshippers every day during Ramadan. Due to the lockdown, iftar will not take place in the mosque. Instead, it will deliver meals to people who need it most.
“Our community iftar has instead been refocused toward providing iftar for those who otherwise would be in difficulty, such as the elderly who are isolating alone, vulnerable people and fasting NHS (National Health Service) workers,” Mohammad said.
MCB Secretary-General Hared Khan praised the community initiatives run by Muslims that have “sprung up to help the vulnerable.”
He said in a statement: “Mosques are using the power of the Internet to serve the religious and spiritual needs of communities.”
He added: “Ramadan is the best time to continue this valuable work in supporting the people around us, regardless of faith and color.”
Masjid e Tauheedul Islam in the town of Blackburn, northwest England, is another mosque that has been keen to keep connected with members of its congregation.
All prayers are livestreamed via the mosque’s website and Mixlr channel, and talks given after prayers are also broadcast.
“Masjid e Tauheedul Islam is trying to deliver a program that benefits the community throughout the day,” the mosque’s Imam Suhail Adam Manya told Arab News.
“Before Ramadan, we used to broadcast a talk after every prayer, but during the holy month this is being ramped up,” he said.
“We’ll be starting a children’s hour broadcast soon, where kids can listen to stories and will be given challenges to complete online. There will be prizes and it will keep them occupied.”
The mosque’s Mixlr channel is proving to be very popular, with “more than 165,000 listens since the lockdown started,” Manya said.
The mosque, like others across the country, “launched a huge community care program in Blackburn when the lockdown was announced,” he added.
“We delivered leaflets with boxes of dates to houses in the community when the lockdown came into effect. We told people that if they had coronavirus symptoms, couldn’t get to the shops or needed any kind of help, they could ring the number on the leaflets and a member of our team would help,” Manya said.
“We have our own call center, and this initiative will continue throughout Ramadan. This weekend, we’ll be distributing food-pack drops to the wider community and hot iftar meals to Muslims. We’ll also be delivering medication to those who are self-isolating,” he added.
“Our call center is extremely busy, and we’re proud to say that 50 percent of the calls that we take are from non-Muslims,” he said.
“We have over 500 volunteers working with us, and since the lockdown we’ve visited up to 7,500 Muslim and non-Muslim homes. We’ve distributed nearly 1,500 hot meals, and we’re supporting the elderly and the sick.”
UK mosques adapt for Ramadan amid coronavirus pandemic
https://arab.news/z8xb8
UK mosques adapt for Ramadan amid coronavirus pandemic
- The East London Mosque will deliver iftar meals to people who need it most this Ramadan as the mosque remains closed
- The MCB has encouraged mosques to find ways “to be a virtual hub of community activism”
Russia warns French troops legitimate targets if they are sent to Ukraine
- French president Emmanuel Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future
Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future. The French leader warned that if Russia wins in Ukraine then Europe’s credibility will be reduced to zero.
“It is characteristic that Macron himself explains this rhetoric with the desire to create some kind of ‘strategic uncertainty’ for Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“We have to disappoint him — for us the situation looks more than certain,” Zakharova said.
“If the French appear in the conflict zone, they will inevitably become targets for the Russian armed forces. It seems to me that Paris already has proof of this.”
Zakharova said Russia was already seeing growing numbers of French nationals among those killed in Ukraine.
Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
AstraZeneca says withdraws Covid vaccine ‘for commercial reasons’
LONDON: British drugmaker AstraZeneca said Wednesday that it has withdrawn its Covid vaccine Vaxzevria, one of the first produced in the pandemic, citing “commercial reasons” and a surplus of updated jabs.
“As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied,” an AstraZeneca spokeperson said.
3 Indian men charged with killing Sikh separatist leader in Canada appear in court
SURREY, British Columbia: Three Indian men charged with killing Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last year have appeared in court in the case that set off a diplomatic spat after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement.
Canadian police had arrested the three Indian men last week in Edmonton, Alberta, and they have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Mandeep Mooker said Friday that the investigation into whether the men had ties to India’s government was ongoing.
Nijjar, 45, was shot to death in his pickup truck last June after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland. India designated him a terrorist in 2020 and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.
India has denied involvement in the slaying. In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Tensions remain but have somewhat eased since.
The arrested men — Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28 — appeared in court Tuesday via a video link and agreed to a trial in English. They were ordered to appear in British Columbia Provincial Court again on May 21.
Brar and Karanpreet Singh appeared in the morning. Kamalpreet’s appearance was delayed until the afternoon as he waited to speak to a lawyer.
The small provincial courtroom was filled with spectators during the morning session. Others crowded into an overflow room to watch the proceedings via video.
Richard Fowler, the defense lawyer representing Brar, said the case will eventually be moved to the Supreme Court and combined into one case.
About 100 people gathered outside the courthouse waving yellow flags and holding photos of Indian government officials whom they accuse of being involved in Nijjar’s killing.
Canadian police say the three suspects had been living in Canada as non-permanent residents.
A bloody decadelong Sikh insurgency shook north India in the 1970s and 1980s until it was crushed in a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan homeland movement has lost much of its political power but still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. While the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback.
UN: Myanmar displaced now at 3 million
- An estimated one-third of those displaced are children, according to the UN statement
YANGON: The number of displaced people in Myanmar has reached three million, the United Nations said, the vast majority forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup.
Around 2.7 million have fled since the putsch that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s government after a short-lived experiment with democracy.
The coup sparked renewed clashes with established ethnic armed groups and birthed dozens of new “People’s Defense Forces” that the military has failed to crush.
“Myanmar stands at the precipice in 2024 with a deepening humanitarian crisis,” the UN’s resident coordinator in the country said in a statement released on Monday.
An estimated one-third of those displaced are children, according to the statement.
Around half of the three million have been displaced since late last year, when an alliance of ethnic armed groups launched an offensive across northern Shan state, the statement said.
The offensive seized swathes of territory and lucrative trade crossings on the China border, posing the biggest threat to the junta since it seized power.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to a plethora of ethnic armed groups, many of whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
The UN said a severe funding shortfall was hampering its relief efforts, particularly ahead of the May-June cyclone season.
Last year cyclone Mocha smashed into western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, killing at least 148 people.
More than 355,000 people are currently displaced in western Rakhine state, which has been rocked since November by clashes between the Arakan Army and the military, the UN said.
Russian court says US soldier charged with theft causing ‘significant’ damage
- Detention of Gordon Black presents yet another diplomatic headache for the US
- The US soldier was detained in early May in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East
MOSCOW: US soldier Gordon Black, who has been detained the Russian city of Vladivostok until July 2, has been charged with theft causing significant damage, a Russian court said.
The detention of Black, who the Pentagon said traveled to Russia without authorization, presents yet another diplomatic headache for the United States, which has warned US citizens against all travel to Russia.
He was detained in early May in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East.
The Pervomaisky District Court of Vladivostok said in a statement that it had decided on the preventive measure to detain Black until July 2 for “secretly stealing the property of citizen T., causing the latter significant damage.”
“When choosing the preventive measure in the form of detention, the court came to the conclusion that US citizen B. (Black) — under the weight of the charges — could hide from the preliminary investigation authorities and the court to avoid responsibility,” the court said in the statement.
Earlier, the court’s press service identified the soldier as Gordon Black.
The Russian interior ministry in Vladivostok said on Tuesday that a 32-year-old woman had filed a complaint against the 34-year-old suspect.
The two had met in South Korea. The American had come to Vladivostok to visit her, the two had an argument, and she later filed a police report accusing him of stealing money, it said. He was arrested in a local hotel, having bought a plane ticket to return home.
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that before his arrest in Russia, Black not only broke Army rules by traveling to the Russian city of Vladivostok without authorization, but he did so after passing through China.
