Equal time for Norwegian atheists

Christian Century, April 19, 2000

The city council in Oslo, Norway, voted March 29 to let Muslims broadcast prayer calls for the first time from rooftops, and will let atheists use the same means to announce meetings and proclaim that "God does not exist." Prior to the council's decision, the ringing of church bells was the only legal prayer call in Norway.

The ruling permits Muslims to use outdoor loudspeakers once every Friday (the Muslim holy day) to broadcast the Islamic prayer call "Allahu akbar," or "God is great." The broadcast must not exceed 60 decibels or continue longer than three minutes. Earlier in January the council granted Muslim priests permission to broadcast the call to prayers five times a day.

In protest of that decision, and in protest of rules that allow Christians to ring church bells, the Norwegian Heathen Society applied for permission to announce meetings via loudspeakers atop roofs. The French press reported that the group initially wanted to broadcast five-minute calls up to ten times a year. "Since the church bells and the preaching from the mosques have taken over the public space, we want to be able to do the same," said Harald Fagerhus, secretary of the Norwegian Pagan Society, a group that had said it planned to broadcast excerpts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The council's decision was a "victory of great symbolic importance," said Abid Raja of the World Islamic Mission, the group that filed the broadcast application. "It means our religion is respected on the same lines as other religions," he said. But he objected to the 60-decibel limit. "If that is true, either they misunderstood or we've been tricked," he said. "What is the point of a call to prayer that is a whisper? We'll have to try it on Friday and see if anyone can hear it." -RNS