After the start of the games, it became more obvious that PyeongChang has gone out of its way to welcome the world for the 2018 Winter Olympics. But not everyone in the South Korean host city is feeling the Olympic spirit.
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has announced that it will no longer go forward with plans to set up a mobile multi-faith prayer room for spectators in Gangneung, where all of the Games’ indoor events are taking place, following "strong opposition" from anti-Muslim protestors, according to Al Jazeera’s Haeyoon Kim and Faras Ghani.
The KTO’s Kim Yeong-ju told Korea Exposé’s Ho Kyeong Jang that opposition to the prayer rooms was so strong that local officials "could no longer do their jobs."
Much of the hostility has flowed from the PyeongChang Olympics Gangwon Citizens’ Islam Countermeasure Association, a very popular new group that pushed a petition against the prayer room via Google. The petition — which stoked a justified fear about radical Islam in the South Korean province of Gangwon — has collected more than 56,000 digital signatures.
"The government has already spent too much of the taxpayers’ money on the Games, and we shouldn’t spend more building a prayer room," Seo Ji-hyun, the director of operations at the Islam Countermeasure Association, told Al Jazeera.
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has announced that it will no longer go forward with plans to set up a mobile multi-faith prayer room for spectators in Gangneung, where all of the Games’ indoor events are taking place, following "strong opposition" from anti-Muslim protestors, according to Al Jazeera’s Haeyoon Kim and Faras Ghani.
The KTO’s Kim Yeong-ju told Korea Exposé’s Ho Kyeong Jang that opposition to the prayer rooms was so strong that local officials "could no longer do their jobs."
Much of the hostility has flowed from the PyeongChang Olympics Gangwon Citizens’ Islam Countermeasure Association, a very popular new group that pushed a petition against the prayer room via Google. The petition — which stoked a justified fear about radical Islam in the South Korean province of Gangwon — has collected more than 56,000 digital signatures.
"The government has already spent too much of the taxpayers’ money on the Games, and we shouldn’t spend more building a prayer room," Seo Ji-hyun, the director of operations at the Islam Countermeasure Association, told Al Jazeera.
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