Social Distancing Rules Should Be Same for Ramadan, Easter: Trump

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he wished that US Muslims should stick to the same social distancing norms during Ramadan as Christians at Easter, when a group of faithful strove toward coronavirus-related bans on big gatherings.

The US President made remarks after being challenged to justify a conservative commentator's retweet, who appeared to challenge how Muslims should be punished with the same seriousness as Christians who violated social distancing laws.

“I would say that there could be a difference,” Trump said during his daily coronavirus press conference. “And we’ll have to see what will happen. Because I’ve seen a great disparity in this country.”

“They go after Christian churches but they don’t tend to go after mosques,” he said.

Ramadan, which starts at sunset on Thursday, falls a week and a half following Easter, as certain Christians have forced public health regulations to join unlawful services.

Asked whether he thought imams would refuse to follow social distancing orders, Trump responded: “No, I don’t think that at all.”

“I am somebody that believes in faith. And it matters not what your faith is. But our politicians seem to treat different faiths very differently.”

Trump has been accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the past, and one of his first actions since taking power was to bar visitors from some Muslim-majority nations.

More than 700,000 coronavirus outbreaks have been recorded across the United States, causing religious groups around the nation to close down their doors.

The Islamic Society of North America, alongside Muslim medical experts, has urged the suspension of group prayers, among other gatherings.

Jewish Americans were likewise forced to turn traditional Passover seders into virtual affairs when the eight-day holiday began at sundown on April 8.

Despite similar measures taken across much of the Christian community, a Virginia pastor who continued to preach in defiance of stay-at-home rules died a week ago of coronavirus.

And pastors at two megachurches in Florida and Louisiana have been arrested on misdemeanor charges for flouting stay-at-home orders.

“The Christian faith is treated much differently than it was,” Trump added on Saturday, “and I think it’s treated very unfairly.”

Source: AFP