"We're continuing to collect signatures during Friday prayers. The aim is to give this petition to authorities when they will see us," said Maazen Rassas, a Greek of Palestinian origin and president of the Muslim Union of Greece.
The petition, signed by at least 10,000 Greek Muslims, calls on officials keep a promise of building a mosque in Athens, The Middle East Times reported.
Muslim Union of Greece hopes the petition will fulfill a demand it made last February for a meeting with minister of education and faiths Marietta Yannakou.
In a report made public in March, Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, expressed his dissatisfaction over the fact that Muslims in Athens are forced to "meet in secret in places unsuitable for prayer".
Authorities promised the construction of a mosque in Athens ahead of the Olympic Games of 2004.
So far there’s only one mosque in Greece. The mosque is located in Thrace, the northeast of the country, where a minority of Muslims of Turkish origin live, and 97 percent of the population is Orthodox Christian.
Authorities are now examining a potential site at Eleonas, a poor, immigrant district of Athens, for the construction of the mosque, Rassas said.
It’s noteworthy that the number of Muslims in Greece has increased dramatically in recent years amidst a wave of economic migration that has swept across the eastern frontier of the European Union.
There are an estimated 370,000 Muslims in Greece, approximately 3.5 percent of the population. Most are from Albania.
The petition, signed by at least 10,000 Greek Muslims, calls on officials keep a promise of building a mosque in Athens, The Middle East Times reported.
Muslim Union of Greece hopes the petition will fulfill a demand it made last February for a meeting with minister of education and faiths Marietta Yannakou.
In a report made public in March, Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, expressed his dissatisfaction over the fact that Muslims in Athens are forced to "meet in secret in places unsuitable for prayer".
Authorities promised the construction of a mosque in Athens ahead of the Olympic Games of 2004.
So far there’s only one mosque in Greece. The mosque is located in Thrace, the northeast of the country, where a minority of Muslims of Turkish origin live, and 97 percent of the population is Orthodox Christian.
Authorities are now examining a potential site at Eleonas, a poor, immigrant district of Athens, for the construction of the mosque, Rassas said.
It’s noteworthy that the number of Muslims in Greece has increased dramatically in recent years amidst a wave of economic migration that has swept across the eastern frontier of the European Union.
There are an estimated 370,000 Muslims in Greece, approximately 3.5 percent of the population. Most are from Albania.
