In the lead up to the festivities on Eid, the Singapore Islamic Religious Council (MUIS) are anticipating larger crowds for the Eid prayers.
In post on Saturday, Apr. 15, they announced that up to three prayer sessions will be offered across 68 mosques to provide 230,000 prayer spaces – although booking is required for some mosques.
On top of that, supplementary spaces at void decks and multipurpose halls will also be available.
The announcement was welcomed by the Muslim community who are looking to perform the prayers with the wider community on Eid.
However, in a memo that was sent to the Singapore Bangladesh Society, addressed to “Bangladeshi Migrant Muslim Brothers in Singapore”, MUIS had requested that the migrant workers perform their Eid prayers at their respective dormitories, instead of having the freedom to do so at a mosque with other Muslims in the community.
The Singapore Bangladesh Society had initially shared the memo on their Facebook page but took it down eventually.
Local rapper Subhas, who have been vocal on racial matters online, was among the first to call MUIS out on the memo.
In an Instagram post, he attached the memo as well as a screenshot of his direct message to MUIS regarding the matter.
He criticized both MUIS and the Singapore Bangladesh Society for “publishing this circular”.
“How does celebrating Eid and praying affect health and safety?” he asked. “If this is about Covid, then this advisory should be for everyone – addressed to all Mulsims or all Singaporeans to wear masks during this festive period.”
He felt that the memo had singled out workers and read like a xenophobic statement.
MUIS has not immediately responded to Coconuts’ queries requesting comment.
Many others also started voicing out their views on this move by MUIS, starting with reminding them that migrant workers have helped build some the mosques.
Others were indisbelief at how discriminatory the request was and everyone demanded an explanation.
Response by MUIS
After being bombarded with comments demanding an apology or explanation, MUIS finally crafted a generic response – which they repeated.
Were people satisfied with the vague response and their copy-and-paste efforts? Well, no.
Besides using the same message for every comment posted on the MUIS Instagram page, what is clearly missing is the resolution.
While they did not publish their apology as an official statement, it is unclear if MUIS had retracted the memo and have yet to reply to the queries by the general public.
Update: MUIS makes official statement
After this story was published, MUIS published their official statement saying that the Singapore Bangladesh Society memo was misunderstood.
“That is definitely not the case. Our Muslim transient worker brothers have always been welcome in our mosques. This note provides a fuller picture of the arrangements that MUIS, mosques and our partners have been making to provide congregants, both local and foreign, with a comfortable and safe prayer experience,” they wrote.
However, the statement was also before MUIS yet again emphasized that mosques everywhere will be very crowded on Hari Raya.
A commenter dismissed the statement and replied to the post saying, “You owe them an apology for having taken them aside and advised them separately as opposed to issuing and identifying them as part of larger Muslim society (in case you haven’t yet realised, doing this is the definition of discrimination).”
“This is hardly a clarification, merely a PR approach at damage control.”
Again, their statement lacks an apology, though they retracted the memo saying that migrant workers are free to join the congregation at the mosque if they find a spot.
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