Muslim college students walked through as neighborhood Korean citizens held symptoms and symptoms to protest a proposed new mosque in Daegu, South Korea, in January. “Korean People Come First!” study one of the symptoms and symptoms. DAEGU, South Korea — Inside the dimly lit residence, younger Muslim guys knelt and prayed in silence. 

Outside, their Korean pals accumulated with indignant symptoms and symptoms to protest “a den of terrorists” stepping into their community. 

In a densely populated however in any other case quiet district in Daegu, a metropolis in southeastern South Korea, a enormously emotional standoff is underway. 

Roughly a hundred and fifty Muslims, ordinarily college students on the close by Kyungpook National University, began out constructing a mosque in plenty round the corner to their transientresidence of worship approximately a yr ago. 

When their Korean pals discovered out, they had been furious. The mosque might flip the communityof Daehyeon-dong into “ an enclave of Muslims and a crime-infested slum,” the Korean pals wrote on symptoms and symptoms and protest banners. 

It might carry extra “noise” and a “meals smell ” from an unusual lifestyle, riding out the Korean citizens. The Muslim college students and their Korean supporters fought back, arguing that that they'd the proper to stay and pray in peace in Daegu, one of the maximum politically conservative towns in South Korea. “There is a distinction among protest and harassment,” stated Muaz Razaq, 25, a Ph.D. scholar in laptop technological know-how who's from Pakistan. “What they had been doing changed into harassment.” Park Jeong-suk, who lives subsequent to the proposed mosque, surveying the web website online from her balcony. 

Construction is on maintain as each aspects take their instances to court. The fault line among the 2groups right here has uncovered an uncomfortable fact in South Korea. At a time while the u . s . a .enjoys extra worldwide have an effect on than ever — with clients round the sector keen to bop to its music, pressure its automobiles and purchase its smartphones — it's also grappling with a fierce wave of anti-immigrant fervor and Islamophobia. While it has efficaciously exported its lifestyleabroad, it's been gradual to welcome different cultures at home. 

The mosque dispute has turn out to be a flash point, a part of a bigger phenomenon wherein South Koreans have needed to confront what it approach to stay in an an increasing number of numeroussociety. Muslims have frequently borne the brunt of racist misgivings, specially after the Taliban doneSouth Korean missionaries in 2007. Many Koreans give an explanation for their mindset towardsforeigners through bringing up history: their small kingdom has survived invasions and occupations for centuries, keeping its territory, language and ethnic identity.

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