Author:
Publication: www.sifynews.com
Date: June 16, 2001
Kuwaiti authorities will seek to
close a Sikh temple that has been operating in the emirate since 1985 in
contravention of Islamic law, the municipality's chairman told Al-Rai Al-Aam
newspaper on Friday.
"The municipality will ask the interior
ministry to close the temple after obtaining a permit from the public prosecution,"
Ahmad al-Adasani said.
"We will not allow any abuse of
our laws and to Islam," Adasani said.
Islamic Affairs Minister Ahmad Baqer,
for his part, warned that the temple was unlicenced and "the concerned
authorities must shut it down."
The temple had been operating without
a licence in a private house in a Kuwait City suburb in violation of Kuwaiti
law that permits only monotheistic religions to have places of worship.
Sikh priest Arjun Singh said Wednesday
his temple was serving the 13,000-strong Sikh community in Kuwait and that
authorities had made no attempt to shut it down.
Singh urged Kuwaiti authorities
to grant a license to the Sikhs to build a bigger temple.
More than 99 per cent of Kuwait's
800,000-strong national population are Muslim. Of the oil-rich emirate's
1.4 million foreigners, around 400,000 are Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs.
