The following text is from a Press Release issued by the MegaMosqueNoThanks campaign:
Local residents and volunteers have launched their campaign against the proposed mega-mosque at West Ham, close to the Olympic Park in east London.
The controversial fundamentalist group Tablighi Jamaat last month lodged with Newham Council their plans for the mosque which, their designer NRAP Architects claimed, will be “the size of Battersea Power Station”. It is planned to have a capacity of 9,350, a dining hall for 2,000 worshippers, residential accommodation for Imams and mosque visitors and a large Islamic library.
The opposition group MegaMosqueNoThanks has taken half-page adverts in the Newham Recorder to inform locals and this morning volunteers commence leafleting commuters at West Ham station and homes across local area. They are also working with a team of planners and lawyers to oppose the planning application.
“The sheer size of the mosque betrays the ambition and arrogance of Tablighi Jamaat,” said MegaMosqueNoThanks campaign director Alan Craig who lives with his family a mile from the site. “Their religious ideology is divisive and hostile to non-Muslims, and there is certainly no local demand for something of this magnitude.
“We’ve seen the awful barriers and division created by the hostility of Tablighi Jamaat’s current headquarters mosque at Savile Town in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said Alan Craig who has visited Savile Town. We don’t want the same here. We want to keep West Ham united!”
If you want to find out how to oppose the move, go to www.MegaMosqueNoThanks.com.