Muslims caught praying face arrest in Paris

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - MUSLIMS caught praying on the streets of Paris face police action after a new law was introduced.

The radical move, which has infuriated many, followed complaints about hundreds of men lying prostate on roads and alleyways of the French capital.

A lack of mosques is being blamed but the government said the practice had to stop.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said praying in the streets 'hurt the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens'. Mr Gueant, a right-winger who wants to uphold the secular nature of the French Republic, said the legislation would be extended to other major cities where 'the problem persists'.

These include places like Lyon and Marseilles, where thousands of France's five million-strong Muslim community live.

Mr Gueant said: "My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism. All Muslim leaders are in agreement."

It follows France becoming the first country in Europe to introduce a full-scale burka ban last April, making it illegal for Muslim women to cover their faces in public.

The claim was that burkas and niqabs were spoiling the secular nature of France, and also potentially being used as disguise for a range of crimes, ranging from terrorism to shop-lifting.

In the case of praying in the street, far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen said it had become a 'political act of fundamentalists', with the thousands of men involved looking like an occupying army.

/129