Authorities in Blackburn said they will “take action” over a gathering of Muslim men praying in the streets which constituted a “serious breach” of coronavirus lockdown measures.
Police in Lancashire had granted “special permission … to perform the [Muslim] call to prayer” in Blackburn to mark Eid, according to a letter signed by Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson and local government leader Mohammed Khan.
But the document, which was seen by BBC Asian Network, reportedly emphasised that individuals must “pray privately in their home” as “restrictions on congregational prayers had not been lifted”.
“Not on the street, not in congregation with an Imam leading the prayer, not with amplified microphones and not with road closures,” the authorities specified.
Blackburn with Darwen Council said they would “take action” against organisers of the gathering, which saw Muslim men praying in the street to celebrate the end of Ramadan with no regard to social distancing or other coronavirus regulations, after footage of the event was uploaded to social media.
Sayyed Osman, the council’s director of adult services, suggested that “the whole community feels let down” by the event, which appeared to breach Wuhan virus guidelines on social distancing and public meetings.
“No permission was given for any such gathering and we see this as a serious breach of the national lockdown,” he said, claiming that it was “only a very small minority” who had prayed on the street.
“We are working with the police to take action against the individual who organised the gatherings.”
Multicultural Blackburn is said to be one of Britain’s least socially cohesive places, with the “Muslim Asian and white communities were living worlds apart” in a kind of informal segregation, according to a BBC investigation in 2007.
A follow-up investigation by the BBC in 2018 found that the situation had, if anything, significantly worsened, with the broadcaster — not normally keen to highlight the downside impact of diversity on the country — quoting one South Asian heritage migrant saying: “There were probably about half a dozen Asian families here [when I arrived], nowadays there’s probably half a dozen white families left” — with “very little prospect for integration”.
Breaches of lockdown rules became a major political issue in Britain, with Boris Johnson’s political advisor Dominic Cummings — who is loathed by the liberal media and establishment over his role in Brexit — has been subjected to a weeks-long witch hunt following claims he flouted restrictions.
Breitbart London previously compared the media uproar over Cummings, which attracted international attention, to the lack of establishment interest when globalist Irish leader Leo Varadkar was pictured at a topless barbecue in the park with multiple friends.
The picnic was dismissed as a “storm in a bag of cans” with the assertion that Varadkar “did no harm” being made in the Irish Times — a newspaper which previously printed multiple pieces condemning British prime minister Boris Johnson for his refusal to sack Cummings.
In one article, which decried Britain and America as “racist” nations “full of white people”, it was claimed that Cummings having held on to his job had revealed “a British political establishment that is obnoxious, its corruption and lies hiding in plain sight”.
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