The prayer room of the EUR, set in the N-building, is more and more being used by students and employees. Various student bodies and political parties are complaining about the current room.
The past few weeks saw a lot of quarrelling about the prayer room, which is used ever more intensively by the large inflow of international students. The commotion started two weeks ago with a petition for a larger prayer room, initiated by the umbrella organization for multicultural students KASEUR. Additionally, KASEUR voiced discontent about the frequency of cleaning services, which is too low in their view. Furthermore, the Rotterdam departments of CDA and NIDA complained about the small size of the reflection room, which would cause long queues.
For everybody
Also the character of the room is cause for complaints. Martijn Samson, member of the University Council, cannot identify with the Islamic stamp: ‘On the official website of the university it is explicitly mentioned that we have an Islamic prayer room here. We find that a room like that has to be accessible for everybody, religious or not.’
General meditation centre
After the Executive Board (EB) was informed about the complaints, rector Huib Pols indicated that there will be a larger, general meditation centre for all (non-) religious people realized as soon as possible. There were plans to do so already, but given the many protests, the EB has promised to hurry. In addition, the EB emphasizes to not aim for separate rooms for men and women.
The current spot, which is and will remain Islamic, cannot be changed significantly at the moment. However, the Erasmus Facility Services has agreed with KASEUR that cleaning services will visit the prayer room more often. MvS
