Saturday night was turbulent in M’Chedallah (40 km east of Bouira). A gala organized by local authorities at the level of the city’s main square aroused the wrath of the imam of a mosque. The religious building is located near the large city square. The concert, hosted by Kabyle singer Taous Arhab, began after the Tarawih prayer.
The gala started at 10:24 p.m. Everything went smoothly and without the slightest incident. At midnight we heard the Koran (from the loudspeakers of the mosque next to the central square where the gala was held) then (the Imam) uttered insults. In particular, he treated the gifts as scum and irreligious and many other insults, reported Berber Television (BRTV) this Sunday, the vice president of M’Chedallah’s APC.
These statements are unacceptable, we condemn violence and intolerance wherever they come from. We are for the right to difference and coexistence, he added, while dismissing rumors that the imam was being held hostage by the populace.
A devotee who attended the tarawih with the imam agreed with the same sentiment and denied that the gala attendees besieged the imam or attempted to attack him.
Our youth did not give in to verbal violence, I pay tribute to him from the bottom of my heart. We used this incident to measure the maturity of our youth, the elected official said happily.
If this Imam’s cursor stopped in the 1990s, those years are over. Our cursor is in 2022, the APC-elect official added. According to him, since the country’s independence, galas have been held in the central square next to the APC headquarters and the Daïra and the mosque.
“isolated act”
We also have the cinema room, but it is closed for works. The culture department has not yet given us the keys to host galas in this space, explained the Vice President of the APC.
When asked by Berbère Television, the head of the M’Chedallah daïra, Lakhdar Zitouni, confirmed that what the Imam said was a “single act” and pointed out that the gala had been planned for a long time.
As for the main square, the leader of the daïra points out that it has always hosted various activities, including meetings during election campaigns. “We also organize blood drives because unfortunately the municipality of M’Chedallah does not have facilities for this type of activity,” he added.
He confirmed that the gala was duly approved. The head of the Daïra also assured that the Imam was alive and well and had not suffered any aggression.
Faced with the outcry of 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 believers.