Umm Muhammed Umar

The DA has been involved in the ban on the Muslim call to prayer that has sparked outrage in Cape Town, amongst Muslims, as well non-Muslims. Radio Islam spoke to the Good Party’s mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Brett Herron, regarding the contentious issue. Herron said that the DA had failed to honour a commitment to exempt religious calls to prayer when it approved amendments to its noise nuisance bylaws.

Herron said that the Western Cape noise regulations, which are provincial regulations, determine what is a noise nuisance and what isn’t. This is measured by the level of the sound, and so is a decibel test. He said, “And so residents can complain about a noise that that is disturbing, and the City would then have to take action against the venue or the person who’s causing the noise nuisance.” In 2019 there was a complaint about the adhaan of the District Six masjid, which is a hundred years old. The City of Cape Town acted on the complaint, resulting in a massive outcry.  Herron said that the city and its leadership, in particular, its mayoral committee member for community services, who happened to be a Muslim, and the chairperson of the safety and security portfolio, gave a public commitment that they would exempt the call to prayer, and the ringing of church bells, from being categorized as noise when they amended the streets and noise nuisance by law.

Herron said, “So, on Wednesday they did amend the by law, but they didn’t deal with the noise component, they only dealt with the homelessness component.” He said that a public promise was made, and then simply ignored. He said, “I submitted comment, and I reminded them that in 2019 they made this commitment to exempt the adhaan and the church bells from constituting a noise nuisance and that they needed to deal with it when they amended this bylaw, but they ignored me.”

Cape Town’s Mayor, Dan Plato, meanwhile, according to Herron, defended the inaction by saying that the amendments that had been made on Wednesday, September 29, did not deal with noise complaints. So, the current situation is that “if someone complains about a religious sound like the call to prayer, or the ringing of church bells, and the sound exceeds the decibel level, then the sound can be stopped, a mosque or a church could be served with a notice to stop ringing the church bells or stop the call to prayer.” He said that local governments have the authority to exempt avenue from the noise regulations and that the City of Cape Town had failed to do that, even though they promised to do so.

Regarding whether Muslim voters would be swayed in the upcoming elections, Herron said that the DA had committed a gross breach of trust by having promised to address the issue of religious calls to prayer being exempted from being termed as noise, but having failed to do so. He added that Muslim voters needed to consider the care, the tolerance of, and respect for their religious practices.