USS Prayer Room

The Challenge,

An earlier recommendation to allocate suitable prayer rooms for Muslims was raised but turned down, “the thought of incorporating suitable ablution facilities was too complex and hadn't been included in the building design” said one senior facilities management personnel.

When a verbal request was made to make use of vacant space/ rooms for prayers, the same member of staff strictly prohibited the concept and added that it may be an embarrassing scenario should a none Muslim observes a Muslim whilst praying.

As a consequence, all Muslims who wish to carry out their daily obligatory prayers must commute to the neighbouring UEL campus which is a 10-15 minute walk one way, 20 to 30 minutes spent on just walking there and back to USS. Then add another 10 minutes for ablution and to conduct the prayer.

Those of us who have tried to use vacant rooms on an individual bases (not to conduct a congregation prayer) were explicitly told not to use any space within the building for this purpose, not even in an unused storage cupboard.

Some of us who have busy schedules may not even have time to eat whilst in and out of lectures, so spending approximately 30 minutes walking to and fro to nearest campus is very difficult and will result in late attendance, low morale, unnecessary stress and anxiety to all stakeholders. Those of us who have longer lectures which may cross over from one prayer time to the next wish that we can carry out our prayers during our 10 minute break, travelling to the neighbouring campus in this circumstance would be impossible.

The Law
The EU adopted the Framework Equality Directive in 2000. The directive outlawed discrimination in employment and vocational training on the grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation, disability and age. In transposing the Directive into UK law, the Government introduced the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, which came into force on 1st December 2003 and the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 which came into force on 2nd December 2003.

The main purpose of the Regulations
It is important to stress from the outset that the main aim of the Regulations is to strike a balance between the religious needs of individuals in employment and training and the needs of public bodies, businesses and organisations.

Provision of prayer facilities:
Employers are not required to make costly adjustments for religious observance at work. However, employees may request access to a place to pray, and if it is possible to provide a room without an unacceptable adverse impact on business or other staff, then employers may be found to be indirectly discriminating if they refuse such a request.

Furthermore, it is good practice for employers to provide a prayer room for their employees. Where only one room is available, it could be designated as a multi-faith prayer or contemplation room.

When reflecting on the previous incidents where student we're told not to use any part of the building despite the obvious availability of rooms and quite spaces, we can see a clear case of indirect discrimination, in fact Birkbeck university advertises some of their rooms for hire for a representative fee ( http://www.bbk.ac.uk/roombookings/rooms/university-square-stratford ), which indicates that not all the rooms are in constant use.

The Solution
The University of East London has a good track record of promoting equality and diversity and has already made provisions for prayer facilities in two other campuses.

We would like to call on both universities to answer our call for the provision of adequate prayer facilities at University Square Stratford within 45 days from receipt of this petition.

Please share this petition.