A student is campaigning to have a Muslim-only prayer room in a campus library shut down or replaced.
Lucas Pourquet, who studies at the University of Liverpool in England, submitted a formal complaint after learning the prayer room in the main library caters exclusively to Muslim students.
He said he objects to the room in the Sydney Jones Library because his his Christianity isn’t welcome wasn’t welcome there.
Despite being advertised across campus simply as a “prayer room”, it actually only allows Islamic worship, and is gender segregated.
As a result, he wants the room to be turned into an all-faiths facility or, failing that, shut down.
His complaint has amassed 240 signatures of support from other students.
Speaking to campus newspaper The Sphinx, Pourquet claimed: “Prayer is the basis of all belief, it is spiritual food. I go to the prayer room and assume it’s a multi-faith prayer room, and I end up seeing there is no place for me.”
The newspaper noted that just under 6% of the student body is Muslim.
Despite the lack of clear signage, the university’s website describes it as having an exclusively “Muslim prayer room” on campus, “purpose-built to meet the needs of male and female Muslim students”.
Liverpool’s Diversity and Equality officer, Darren Mooney, suggested that non-Muslim students seek the service of the university’s “on-campus” chaplaincy, and that other faith groups, such as Christian and Jewish students, make use of a faith-based drop-in centre”.
The university has yet to comment.
Featured image: https://www.vitastudent.com/
