Officials in Sidney, New York, want the local Muslim religious community to remove its small cemetery, claiming bodies have been buried illegally in the upstate locale. But when pressed on the matter, town leaders were unable to cite the laws broken. That’s because no local or state ordinances currently exist addressing the issue of cemeteries on private land. “Islamophobia” may be the real reason behind the push to force Muslims to dig up their dead, an effort that could result in a discrimination lawsuit for the small town of 6,000 in Delaware County.

 

The deceased Muslims in question were members of a Sufi group, Osmanlı Nakş-ı'bendi Hakkani Tarikat, which has a center in Passaic, New Jersey, and opened a second center in Sidney in order to benefit from the peaceful countryside.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Tiny Upstate New York Town Wants Local Muslims to Dig Up Their Cemetery (by Andrew Reinbach, Huffington Post)