05 December 2012

Rejected: the mosque plan that grew so big it attracted the wrong sort of crowd

Plans by a missionary Islamic sect to build one of Britain’s largest mosques that left a community divided and attracted far-right groups, including the English Defence League, were tonight rejected.

Police officers were stationed outside the Old Town Hall of the east London borough of Newham as about 3,000 supporters of the plans to build the mosque gathered tonight.

Tablighi Jamaat, a socially conservative Muslim revivalist movement with a strong presence in east London, wanted to build a mosque on a site in West Ham, close to the Olympic Park, to accommodate more than 9,000 worshippers – about four times the capacity of St Paul's. [independent.co.uk] Read more