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 incident unfolded as residents debated the possible expansion of a local mosque, with some also criticizing the language used in zoning documents and meeting materials.
The disruption took place before the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners as speakers addressed the board. Dressed entirely in black and showing only her left eye, the woman walked to the podium and played the recording instead of delivering a spoken statement.
It remained unclear whether the act was intended as a protest or a prank.
The recording continued for nearly a minute before Board Chairman Dave Eggers intervened. He reminded the woman that county rules require members of the public to offer verbal remarks rather than play prerecorded material.
“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 went to the podium and escorted her from the meeting room and the county building.
The removal quickly prompted a heated reaction among people in attendance, several of whom shouted at and argued with Eggers over the 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 governing public comments.
“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 confrontation occurred during a public-comment session in which several residents objected to the board’s Oct. 13 decision to approve, by a 4-3 vote, a land-use change tied to the proposed expansion of the Masjid Al Rahman mosque. In presentations and official documents, the property was described as a “community assembly facility.”
The amendment changed the site’s designation from residential rural to public and semi-public use, allowing the owner to replace the existing building with a new structure that would be 1,000 square feet larger.
At Tuesday’s meeting, opponents of the project raised a range of objections, including concerns about the treatment of women in Muslim-majority nations.
“It is about the big picture and the long term,” one woman told commissioners. “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 mosque’s plans. “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 the mosque was not identified more plainly in county documents.
“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 premises without further incident and will not be charged with a crime.
