09 February 2016

German univ. closes interfaith room after Muslim students turn it into mosque, segregate women

TU Dortmund University in Germany recently closed its “Room of Silence” — an interfaith room on campus — after Muslim students converted it into a makeshift mosque and even set up partitions to separate female and male students who sought to use the space.

That according to a five-page memo published last week by the university’s rector, which was written in German and transcribed into English by The College Fix using Google translate.

The letter, dated Feb. 3, spells out how the interfaith room at the public university — which enrolls 33,550 students, 3,200 of whom are foreign students from more than 100 countries — had to be closed after Muslim students repeatedly took it over.

The room opened in 2012 to accommodate the wide variety of faiths on campus and because some Muslim students were praying in staircases, causing a fire hazard, according to the memo, which noted the space was intended as a place where students could enjoy “undisturbed individual religious practice.” [The College Fix] Read more