A woman in a burka was escorted from a Florida county commissioners meeting Tuesday after playing a recording of the Islamic call to prayer during public comment. The disruption came as residents debated the possible expansion of a local mosque, with some objecting to the wording used in zoning documents and meeting materials.
The incident unfolded as the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners heard from members of the public. A woman dressed in black from head to toe, with only her left eye visible, approached the podium and began playing the recording instead of delivering spoken remarks.
It was unclear whether the act was intended as a protest or a prank.
A woman wearing a burka was escorted from a Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners meeting after playing what appeared to be an Islamic call to prayer. (Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners.)
The audio continued for nearly a minute before Board Chairman Dave Eggers intervened. He reminded the woman that county rules require speakers to provide verbal comments rather than play recordings.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to stop … stop the music, stop the tape,” Eggers said.
When she did not comply, a deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office walked to the podium and escorted her out of the meeting room and the building.
Her removal quickly intensified tensions in the room, as several people in the audience shouted at Eggers and challenged his decision.
“Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own,” Eggers told the crowd. “We’re all people living together here.”
Eggers then explained the policy to those attending the meeting.
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“We don’t allow taped things,” he said. “You can record the meeting, but we don’t allow taped activity like that. We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out.”
The disruption occurred during a public-comment period in which several residents criticized the board’s Oct. 13 decision to approve, by a 4-3 vote, a land-use amendment allowing the expansion of the Masjid Al Rahman mosque. In presentations and official documents, the project was described as a “community assembly facility.”
The decision changed the property’s designation from residential rural to public and semi-public. That change would allow the owner to replace the existing building with a new structure measuring 1,000 square feet more than the current one.
At Tuesday’s meeting, opponents raised concerns about the facility, with some pointing to the treatment of women in Muslim-majority countries.
“It is about the big picture and the long term,” one woman told the commission. “By allowing this mosque to expand in our area, you are participating in the expansion of a totalitarian ideology which is fundamentally opposed to Western American values. Expansion of the ideology of Islam is not good for women’s rights.”
Another speaker defended the project. “They want to turn it to face Mecca, and they want it to look a little more like a mosque instead of a house,” she said. “We have no problems with them. We’ve been their neighbors for many years.”
Commissioner Vince Nowicki reportedly questioned why county documents did not describe the mosque in more direct, plain-language terms.
“Residents read these materials to understand what is being proposed near them, and they should get the same plain description in every case, no matter the applicant,” Nowicki wrote in an email to County Administrator Barry Burton, according to Florida Politics.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said the woman left the property without further incident and will not face criminal charges.
