Muslims, atheists to slug it out in Oslo via loudspeakers

                  March 29, 2000
                  Web posted at: 8:00 AM EST (1300 GMT)

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - -The Norwegian capital,
solving a tangle over religious freedom in the
Christian-dominated nation, has decided to let Muslims
broadcast prayer calls for a first time while allowing
atheists to shout, "God does not exist."
  Under a ruling by a council for eastern Oslo, a
mosque will be allowed to use a loudspeaker to
broadcast a prayer call into the streets for three
minutes every Friday, the Muslim holy day.
  The volume of the broadcast must not exceed 60
decibels. The Atheist Society, in the same part of the
capital which has a high population of immigrants,
will also be allowed to use a megaphone to invite
members to
meetings from a rooftop once a week, including the
call: "God does not exist."
  "We strongly suspect that the atheists applied to
shout out their opinions because they were provoked by
the applications from the World Islamic Mission," said
Jan Willy Lyng, a Labour member of the local Oslo
council. "To give fair treatment we had to say 'yes',
but I don't think these atheists actually will climb
on the roof and shout too often," he told Reuters.
 Until now, the only legal prayer calls in Norway is
the ringing of church bells. Christianity is the state
religion in Norway.
 The wailing call to prayer, or azzan, is recited five
times daily in mosques in Muslim countries.

 Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved.

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