Meditation room closed in the middle of Ramadan after break-in in F building

The meditation room in the G building is temporarily closed because of the break-in in the F building. That is inconvenient for many muslim students because of the ongoing Ramadan. They are resorting to unofficial prayer spots in stairwells.

The G building is currently closed because the power has been cut, signs at the entrances say. The theft of taps and boilers from the adjacent F building caused major water damage last weekend. As a result, the power in the linked buildings was turned off.

The meditation room in G is mostly used by muslim students to pray between classes, and especially during Ramadan the space comes in handy. On Thursday though, students encountered a closed door. A student who doesn’t want to be named in the article mentioned an unofficial alternative, at the top floor of the library. Another student, Dila Rahim, also didn’t know the building was closed. “Yes, this  is odd. But we are not informed by the university more often, so I’m not surprised.” She said she’d also go and check out the library top floor.

Room was closed before

The meditation room, meant for people of all faiths, was closed earlier this year as well. Both the F and G buildings have been empty since 1 January, awaiting demolition. A new meditation room is planned for the Tinbergen building, but the renovation of that building will take at least another year before it opens.

Recently the room in G, possibly at the request of students, was reopened. Visiting this space was a risky undertaking though, since apart from the meditation room there was no light left in the building and the dark corridor is full of leftover items from student associations that have already moved out.

Little space

Now the space is closed again because of the break-in, at an inconvenient time during Ramadan. There are still some unofficial prayer spots, such as in the emergency stairwells of the library and the Polak building, but there is little space and there are no facilities to wash your feet. That was possible in the G building.

As far as is known, the closure of the meditation room was not communicated to the Islamic student associations. It is also unclear how long the G building will remain closed and whether an alternative room will be made available. Questions about this to the university’s press office could not be answered before the weekend.