The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) has issued an apology for a poorly worded circular regarding Muslim migrant workers that "generated a significant amount of disappointment and even outrage" among Singaporeans.
The circular was distributed online to the Bangladeshi Muslim migrant worker (MTW) community by the Singapore Bangladesh Society (SBS) on behalf of Muis on Sunday, April 16th.
Since then, SBS has removed the circular from its social media pages, but screenshots of it continue to propagate online.
In the circular, SBS stated that it had been "advised to convey a message from Muis" requesting that Muslim migrant employees perform their Hari Raya Puasa prayers in their respective dormitories rather than in a mosque with other community members.
This will aid in preventing congestion and road congestion and safeguard everyone's health and safety, according to the circular.
On Sunday night (16 April), Muis' Instagram posts were overwhelmed with comments demanding an explanation for the circular's contents.
Muis responded to a number of these comments by apologizing for "the notice's phrasing."
"It is never our intention to discriminate against our Muslim migrant brothers. They are valued members of the congregation. These are simply efforts due to limited spaces in our mosques. We have tried to address this by organising multiple sessions, thus doubling or tripling capacity, and trying to make more convenient places like dorms available for prayer.
We would like our Muslim migrant brothers to be comfortable when doing their ibadah (prayers). Once again, apologies for the insensitive language. We will do better."
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