More than two dozen religious, political and community leaders gathered Friday morning, before noon prayer at the American Moslem Society mosque in Dearborn, to call attention to a legal fight with nearby Woodmere Cemetery.  At issue, the mosque — the oldest in Michigan — said the 150-year-old cemetery is preventing Muslims from being buried there and seeking to take advantage of them. And, its religious leaders added, it’s affecting Muslims throughout the state. “All we want from the new management that came into Woodmere Cemetery in 2018 is to treat our community with respect,” said Mahdi Ali, the president of the mosque’s board. “We don’t want anything more than that.”

The mosque filed a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit in May against the cemetery’s owner, Midwest Memorial Group, accusing the limited liability company of breach of contract and violating state law.

This week, the American Human Rights Council added its voice to the conflict.

The mosque’s attorney, Steven Cohen, counters no such clause exists and that position is a pretense to negotiate a new contract — and inflate the price of the grave spaces…The mosque also argues that this is “particularly egregious” because the Muslim community is “extraordinarily tight-knit” and “places a high premium on having loved ones buried in close proximity” to each other and their mosque.

Source: Detroit Free Press