Israel PM Netanyahu limits Azaan
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JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he backed a bill limiting the volume of calls to prayer from mosques, a proposal government watchdogs have called a threat to religious freedom.
Netanyahu, speaking before a ministerial committee adopted the draft bill, said he would support such a move that some have labelled unnecessarily divisive.
The bill now faces three readings in parliament before becoming law.
Israeli media reported that the bill would stop the use of public address systems for calls to prayer.
"I cannot count the times -- they are simply too numerous -- that citizens have turned to me from all parts of Israeli society, from all religions, with complaints about the noise and suffering caused them by the excessive noise coming to them from the public address systems of houses of prayer," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.
