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March 29, 2006
UK: Burial Strike - But Muslims Get Special Treatment
According to today's Times, the current national strike of local government workers has created extra controversy in Blackburn, Lancashire.
In echoes of the 1978-79 "winter of discontent" where bodies were unburied because of striking workers, this time round, Blackburn funeral directors were making Christians wait for their relatives to be interred, but only Christians were not having burials in a council-run cemetery in the town.
Funerals had to be re-arranged, and mourners were instructed that they could not visit the cemetery to read its book of remembrance.
So while Christians were forced to undergo this indignity at a moment of sorrow, the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council announced that Muslims would be exempted from the ban on burials, and would be receiving special treatment.
It stated that a special emergency service would be provided for Muslims, because it is said under the terms of their faith that dead bodies should be interred as soon as is possible.
After being accused of positive discrimination by one funeral director, last night the Council tried a desperate back-peddling measure in damage limitation.
A spokeswoman for the council said: "We will bury anybody, irrespective of religion, if that's their request."
During yesterday's strike, other councils either closed their cemeteries for all, or ran them as normal. This happened in Sheffield and Birmingham. These two councils have large numbers of Muslims in their population.
There are four cemeteries in Blackburn and Darwen Borough, but only one, the Pleasington, is open "for business" on Sundays, and thus is regarded as important to local Muslims, who demand 7/7 access to burial sites. The council caused a fuss at the start of this year when it introduced a one hundred pound ($173.39) increase in its burial charges.
On Friday and Saturday, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will be visiting Blackburn, for reasons that even escape the locals, some of whom describe their town as "scruffy and poor".
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 29, 2006 9:25 AM
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