Muslim students lead protest for adequate prayer space at New York’s Baruch College

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnNEW YORK (RNS) — Loud chants carried through the main plaza at Baruch College in the early afternoon on Thursday (April 20) as a group of around 40 students protested near the Office of Student Life. The students, a majority of them Muslim, were calling on the administration to offer better, more accessible interfaith spaces.The campus, located a few blocks east of Manhattan’s Madison Square Park, currently offers an interfaith space (room 3-225 in the William and Anita Newman Vertical Campus) that fits around 15 students, and for a college with more than 500 Muslim students, students say the room is not big enough to meet their needs.
“It’s so hard to pray. The room is so small, people end up stepping over each other and it’s a hazard,” said Ayub Tursonzadah, a Muslim student at Baruch College and one of the protest organizers.
Thursday’s protest, coming on the final day of Ramadan, was one of the larger weekly protests students have organized over the past two months. The prayer room was extra crowded during the holy month of fasting and prayer, Muslim students said.
Muslims pray five times a day, and men and women are required to pray separately. With the size limitations of the current interfaith space, …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]