Shafaqna English- French authorities have launched an investigation after severed pig heads were found at nine Mosques across the country, prompting an alert among French Muslim communities, as per a report in Al-Jazeera.
A couple of kilometres (about a mile) from the Eiffel Tower, the Mosque is a place of worship for a diverse community of Muslims which has long coexisted with neighbours in a leafy district of the French capital.
“It’s the first time something like this has ever happened to us,” Najat Benali, the Mosque’s rector, told Al-Jazeera English.
That Tuesday, September 9, worshippers heading in for the dawn prayer discovered the act of desecration. Muslims are forbidden from eating pork and consider pigs to be unclean.
The worshippers called Benali, who rushed to the site. “They were in a state of shock,” Benali said. When something like that happens, “naturally, you check your surroundings.” When police arrived, Benali learned that the Javel Mosque was not the only one to have been targeted.
In total, nine severed pig heads had been scattered on the doorsteps of Mosques across Paris and its nearby suburbs, in what French authorities are investigating as an act of foreign interference.
“One cannot help but draw parallels with previous actions which have been proven to be acts of foreign interference,” said Laurent Nunez, Paris’s police prefect, at a news conference.
Sources: Aljazeera