“Sabotage”: Amsterdam mosque alleges prayer call audio cable intentionally cut

The leader of an Amsterdam mosque believes someone with bad intentions deliberately sliced an audio cable on the building's rooftop to prevent the religious group's first call-to-prayer from being amplified by an outdoor loudspeaker. The Blauw Moskee was set to announce the beginning of a prayer service just before 1 p.m., but visitors and passers-by were met only with the street noise typical of any Amsterdam Nieuw-West neighborhood.

"It looks like sabotage," the said the mosque's head imam, Yassin Elforkani to newspaper Parool. “We tested the sound system yesterday and everything worked fine. We did not want to do it again today to limit any inconvenience. It must have happened tonight or this morning."

The mosque had not decided Friday afternoon whether or not to ask police to investigate. The mosque's spokesperson said they would first look to see if they have any security camera footage that could be useful in sorting out what exactly happened.

Plans by the mosque to broadcast a prayer call on Friday afternoons was met with mixed reactions. Many neighbors, including people of different races and religious backgrounds, said they had no problem at all with the once-weekly event. Others, including Amsterdam's mayor, atheists, and nationalists said they were opposed to it.

Some opposition was even more fanatical, spokesperson Nourdeen Wildeman told the Parool. For now the mosque is hopeful it was a one-time prank.

“We understand the joke. Now that we have found out what is going on, we are going to repair it and make sure that it does not happen again," Wildeman said.