Friday, the mosques of New York City announced the call to prayer via loudspeakers for the first time, after the municipality’s permission to do so.
And New York Mayor Eric Adams announced, on Wednesday, that the call to prayer will be allowed through external loudspeakers in the city’s mosques during Friday prayers, and in sunset prayers during the month of Ramadan.
Dozens of members of the Muslim community in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, held Friday prayers in the courtyard of the municipal building, to celebrate the call to prayer in New York and to demand a similar decision in their mosques, according to what media outlets reported from social media activists who provided a live broadcast of the prayer.
On August 29, when announcing the decision in a press conference, Adams said, “Under the new rules, mosques will not need a special permit to broadcast the call to prayer publicly on Fridays and at sunset during the holy month of Ramadan.”
He added: “Friday is a traditional Islamic holy day, and Muslims break their fast at sunset during the month of Ramadan.”
Adams explained at the time that “the Police Department’s Office of Community Affairs will work with mosques to communicate the new guidelines and ensure that devices used to broadcast the call to prayer are set to ‘appropriate’ levels.”
The mayor's office stated that "houses of worship can transmit up to 10 decibels (a unit of measure for loudness of sound) above the ambient sound level."
“For a long time, there has been a feeling that our communities are not allowed to call the call to prayer,” Adams said. “Today, we are breaking the routine and clearly saying that mosques and places of worship are free to call the call to prayer on Fridays and during the month of Ramadan without obtaining the necessary permission.”
During the same press conference held to announce and sign the decision, the call to prayer was raised in a municipal building in New York, according to a video clip that spread on social media.
United State : No one knows about Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan’s meeting with Netanyahu in occupied Jerusalem. Why?
Washington - He may be persona non grata in the White House, but Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan was happy to sit with extremist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.
The two sides discussed “the main challenges and opportunities facing the United States and Israel, and the necessity of cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence,” according to a statement issued by Netanyahu’s office.
The statement added, “Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked Senator Hassan for her continued support for Israel.”
Interestingly, there is no press release from Hassan about the matter, and her meeting was not mentioned on her official US Senate website, personal page, or social media accounts. According to Google News, there have been no reports of their meeting in the American press.
Michael Graham, managing editor of Inside Source, noted that Laura Epstein, Senator Hassan's spokeswoman, declined to answer repeated questions from the New Hampshire Journal about the meeting.
Hassan's pages on social media included pictures of her visiting health services in Kos County, but there is no mention of her visit to occupied Jerusalem or the conversation with the "right-wing extremist" Netanyahu.
It is not known why Hassan obscured the visit, but her spokeswoman said earlier that the senator visited Israel as part of an official congressional trip .
"Why didn't Hasan tell voters in New Hampshire about her visit?" Graham asked.
Many commentators mocked the “secret visit” and said it was “an example of the hypocrisy of a current in the Democratic Party” when it comes to Israel.
Maggie Hassan, a prominent American Democratic politician and lawyer, served as Governor of New Hampshire from 2013 to 2017. She is married to Thomas Hassan.
Report : A new United Nations report presented to the Hague Court: Israel is a racist state
The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Michael Lynk, presented a new report confirming that Israel is an apartheid state.
A new United Nations report presented to the Hague Court: Israel is a racist stateThe Supreme Committee of the Prisoner Movement in Palestine: Ben Gvir’s decisions regarding prisoners is playing with fire and we will not raise the white flag
The report is scheduled to be submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, before it is presented at the hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
Lenk presented his conclusions about the situation in the West Bank, stating that the Israeli occupation is illegal, and recommending that the Hague Court "order" the Israeli army to withdraw immediately and unconditionally, as well as the "colonial settlers", repeal all discriminatory laws, and dismantle the civil administration.
Link noted in the report that Israel "violates international law, annexes occupied territories, violates civil rights and practices apartheid."
Link, a Canadian law professor who is leaving office after seven years, describes the report as "one of the most comprehensive reports on occupation, decolonization and self-determination ever published by the United Nations."
Cuba's representative Pedro Pedroso, a member of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said: "It is an ethnic cleansing process. Here we act as if it is normal... The United Nations does not talk about what is happening in the Palestinian territories, and the Security Council does not talk about what is happening."
Pedroso criticized New York Mayor Eric Adams' recent visit to Israel, saying, "He talks on social media all the time, but there is not a word about denying the rights of the Palestinian people. There seems to be no price for that."
The new report joins a series of recent United Nations reports that have criticized Israel. Last October, the Commission of Inquiry of the United Nations Human Rights Council published a report in which its members wrote that, in the final analysis, “there are reasonable grounds for reaching conclusions regarding the illegality of the Israeli occupation of the territories.” "Palestinian law under international law. Because it is permanent and because of the actual annexation policy pursued by the Israeli government." In addition, the committee noted that Israel's actions could be considered a war crime under international law.
In March 2022, a United Nations Special Committee on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories submitted a similar report, which concluded that the situation in Israel and the occupied territories "amounts to apartheid."