Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-07-07

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Debate on electoral law bill starts in parliamentary committee

[02] Work on building mosque in Athens' Votanikos district can continue, top court says

[01] Debate on electoral law bill starts in parliamentary committee

On the start of the debate, Interior and Administrative Reconstruction Minister Panagiotis Kouroumblis submitted a legislative improvement which divides article two of the draft in two separate articles, to distinguish the abolition of the 50-seat bonus granted to the first party from the proposal to maintain the 3 pct threshold for entering parliament.

This change is believed to be a gesture of goodwill towards the Communist Party which will want approve the abolition of the bonus but vote against the 3 pct threshold, on which it has expressed its opposition.

[02] Work on building mosque in Athens' Votanikos district can continue, top court says

The 850-square-metre mosque, with a capacity for 300 men and 50 women, was originally scheduled to be built in a 17,000 square metre site in a converted former Navy auto garage in the Votanikos area in central Athens. It was designed to cover the religious needs of Muslims in the Greek capital.

Construction had been blocked by a case filed by 111 residents of the Elaionas district identifying themselves as "Orthodox Christian Greek Citizens", who had asked that the tender for the construction project be cancelled as unconstitutional and illegal.

The court ruling rejected their objections to the mosque's construction as unfounded, noting that no environmental impact study was required for the building of temples and places of worship, while the construction did not result in any deterioration of the local environment and was not incompatible with town planning rules. Furthermore, the CoS noted, the building's adherence to the building code was something that could be checked at a later stage, when a construction permit was issued.

This is the second unsuccessful bid by the same group of residents to cancel the mosque's construction, following a petition to the CoS in 2013 to revoke its funding that was thrown out by the CoS plenum in 2014.

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