Woman wearing burka escorted out of Florida county meeting after playing call to prayer recording
A woman wearing a burka was escorted out of a Florida county commissioners meeting on Tuesday after playing a recording of the Islamic call to prayer during the public comment period where residents spoke against the potential expansion of a local mosque amid concerns from some over its wording on zoning and agenda materials.
The incident occurred as the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners was listening to residents address the board. A woman covered head-to-toe in black, with only her left eye visible, and approached the podium. Rather than making a verbal statement, she activated a recording of the call to prayer.
It was not immediately clear whether the gesture was a protest or a prank.
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The audio played for nearly a minute before Board Chairman Dave Eggers interrupted, pointing out that county rules require public speakers to deliver verbal comments rather than play recordings.
"Ma’am, you’re going to have to stop … stop the music, stop the tape," Eggers said.
When the woman refused to comply, a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputy approached the podium and escorted her out of the meeting room and the building.
Her removal sparked immediate friction in the room, with several audience members shouting and arguing with Eggers over the decision.
"Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own," Eggers told the audience. "We’re all people living together here."
He further clarified the board’s rules to the crowd.
"We don’t allow taped things," he said. "You can record the meeting, but we don’t allow taped activity like that. We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out."
The incident came during a public period where multiple residents decried an Oct. 13 vote in which the board voted 4-3 to approve a land-use amendment for the expansion of the Masjid Al Rahman mosque, which was referred to in presentations and documents as a "community assembly facility."
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The vote changed the property's land use from residential rural to public and semi-public, which would allow the facility's owner to replace the building with a newer structure 1,000 feet larger.
During Tuesday's meeting, public speakers spoke out against the facility, some citing the treatment of women in Muslim-majority countries.
"It is about the big picture and the long term," one woman told the commission. "By allowing this mosque to expand in our area, you are participating in the expansion of a totalitarian ideology which is fundamentally opposed to Western American values. Expansion of the ideology of Islam is not good for women's rights."
Another woman supported the mosque: "They want to turn it to face Mecca, and they want it to look a little more like a mosque instead of a house," she said. "We have no problems with them. We've been their neighbors for many years."
Commissioner Vince Nowicki reportedly questioned why the mosque wasn't described in plain language in government documents.
"Residents read these materials to understand what is being proposed near them, and they should get the same plain description in every case, no matter the applicant," Nowicki wrote in an email to County Administrator Barry Burton, Florida Politics reported.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the woman was escorted from the premises without further incident and will not face any criminal charges.