Saturday night was restless in M’Chedallah (40 km east of Bouira). A gala organized by local authorities in the city’s main square infuriated the imam of a mosque. The religious building is located near the main town square. The concert, hosted by Kabyle singer Taous Arhab, started after the tarawih prayer.
“The gala started at 10:24 PM. Everything went smoothly and without the slightest incident. At midnight we heard the Quran (from the loudspeakers of the mosque adjacent to the main square where the gala was held) and then (the Imam) uttered insults. He mostly treated the presents as scum and irreligious and a lot of other insults,” Berber Television (BRTV), M’Chedallah’s APC vice president, reported Sunday.
“These comments are unacceptable, we condemn violence and bigotry wherever they come from. We are for the right to difference and coexistence,” he added, denying rumors that the imam would be held hostage by the population.
In the same vein, a devotee attending the tarawih with the imam denied that the participants of the gala were besieging or attempting to attack the imam.
“Our youth did not give in to verbal abuse, I bring him a sincere honour. Through this incident, we have measured the degree of maturity of our youth,” delighted the elected official.
“If this Imam’s cursor stopped in the 1990s, those years are over. Our cursor is in 2022,” the elected APC official added. According to him, since the country’s independence, galas have been organized in the main square adjacent to the APC headquarters and the daira, as well as the mosque.
“isolated act”
“We also have the cinema room, but it is closed due to construction. The culture department has not yet given us the keys to organize galas in this room’, explains the vice-chairman of the APC.
Asked by Berbere Television, the head of the M’Chedallah daïra, Lakhdar Zitouni, confirmed that what the imam said was an “isolated act”, while pointing out that the gala had been on the agenda for a long time.
As for the main square, the head of the daira points out that various activities have always taken place, including rallies during election campaigns. “We are also organizing blood donation operations because unfortunately the M’Chedallah Municipality does not have space for this type of activity,” he added.
He confirmed that the gala was duly authorized. The head of the daira also assured that the imam was safe and sound and did not undergo any aggression.
Faced with the outrage sparked by his insulting remarks, the imam of the “Al Hidaya” mosque apologized to the population this Sunday after the Al Asr prayer, in the presence of the religious authorities and the faithful.
