(AFP) After Turkey turned Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia museum back to a mosque, Muslims in Athens fear their own official place of worship, delayed for over a decade, will be held back again.
The project to open a state-sanctioned mosque in Athens, the only European capital that does not have one, was launched in 2007.
But it immediately ran into strong opposition from the influential Orthodox Church, as well as from nationalist groups.
“I think after this incident, it might be even more difficult to open the official mosque that we have awaited for ten years,” says Imam Atta-ul Naseer, who runs a makeshift mosque in a central Athens apartment.
