A woman wearing a burka was escorted from a Florida community meeting after she continued broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer through a microphone, despite repeated instructions to switch it off.
The woman identified herself as Celine Al Jamal. She was removed from Tuesday’s Pinellas County Commission meeting, where residents had gathered to voice opposition to a proposed expansion of a local mosque, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
After almost two hours of public comments, Al Jamal walked to the podium dressed from head to toe in black. A mesh covering obscured most of her face, leaving only part of her left eye visible.
Instead of speaking directly to the commissioners, she played a recording of the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer traditionally used to invite Muslims to attend the mosque for the five daily prayers.
The recording, featuring a flute and a voice reciting words in Arabic, played for nearly a minute as Al Jamal stood silently at the microphone. Board Chairman Dave Eggers eventually interrupted.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to stop… stop the music, stop the tape,” he told her.
Another board member explained that the public-comment session was intended for residents to speak to commissioners themselves, rather than submit prerecorded audio.
Al Jamal did not immediately comply. She continued playing the recording while looking toward the commissioners and people seated in the meeting room.
A woman wearing a burka was removed from a Florida community meeting Tuesday after continuing to play the Islamic call to prayer through a microphone
A photograph taken after the incident showed the woman, who identified herself as Celine Al Jamal, seated on a curb while three officers appeared to take her statement
“Stop the tape, ma’am,” Eggers said once more before directing officials to remove her from the microphone.
“Just escort [her] out,” he ordered. “Enough! Enough!”
Two uniformed men then moved toward Al Jamal and took her out of the meeting as some attendees heckled her and others shouted amid the chairman’s decision.
“Tase her,” one person shouted. Another called out, “Shave your legs!” As Al Jamal was taken through the doorway, a third resident yelled, “Jesus is our savior!”
Several people in the room applauded, while others pulled out their phones to record the tense and disorderly removal.
Eggers later asked the audience to settle down, saying: “Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own. We’re all people living together here.”
He added that the commission does not permit prerecorded material during public comment. “You can record the meeting, but we don’t allow taped activity like that,” Eggers said. “We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out.”
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A post-removal photograph showed Al Jamal sitting on a curb outside the venue, with three officers nearby who appeared to be gathering her account of what happened.
Board Chairman Dave Eggers (pictured right) told the woman that residents were expected to address commissioners in their own words instead of playing a recording
Despite repeated requests to stop, Al Jamal continued playing the recording while looking toward the commissioners and audience
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that she was escorted from the premises without further incident and would not face criminal charges, Fox reported
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that she was escorted from the premises without further incident and would not face criminal charges, according to Fox News.
The chaos unfolded as residents voiced concerns about a proposed mosque expansion, including objections to the wording of zoning documents and the meeting agenda.
Earlier this month, the county commission voted 4-3 to approve a land-use amendment for Masjid Al Rahman, a mosque on a 2.69-acre property at 2577 Keystone Road in East Lake.
The mosque, which has operated from a home since the 1990s, pursued plans for a larger facility this year. The commission’s latest vote paved the way for the existing structure to be demolished and replaced with one 1,000 feet larger.
County officials described the project as a ‘community assembly facility’ rather than a mosque, prompting Commissioner Vince Nowicki to question at Tuesday’s meeting why it had not been described in plain language.
‘Residents read these materials to understand what is being proposed near them, and they should get the same plain description in every case, no matter the applicant,’ he wrote in an email to the county administrator, The Print reported.
Others opposed the proposed facility by raising concerns about women’s rights in Muslim-majority countries, with one person declaring: ‘Islam is not good for women’s rights.’
‘It is about the big picture and the long term,’ the unidentified woman told the audience, according to a transcript of the meeting.
The scene unfolded as residents voiced concerns about a proposed expansion to Masjid Al Rahman mosque in East Lake, which has operated from a home since the 1990s (pictured)
Eggers (pictured) appealed for calm, telling those in the room: ‘Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own. We’re all people living together here’
‘By allowing this mosque to expand in our area, you are participating in the expansion of a totalitarian ideology which is fundamentally opposed to Western American values. Expansion of the ideology of Islam is not good for women’s rights.’
Meanwhile, others supported the mosque. One woman told the commission: ‘They want to turn it to face Mecca, and they want it to look a little more like a mosque instead of a house.’
‘We have no problems with them,’ she added. ‘We’ve been their neighbors for many years.’
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