ATHENS: Dozens of far-right activists and local residents threw eggs and taunted hundreds of Muslim immigrants as they gathered to pray in a central square for Eidul Azha surrounded by a protective cordon of riot police.

Greece, which has become the main immigrant gateway to the European Union, has a growing Muslim community and tensions between locals and incomers have run high in some Athens areas such as Attiki square, the scene of Tuesday’s incident.

Athens’ Muslim community is without an official mosque and prayers are usually held at cultural centres or community halls or private apartments around the city. The Muslim community in Greece is estimated at about 1 million, in a country where most people are Greek Orthodox Christians.

While the Muslims prayed, some locals shouted obscenities from their balconies and waved Greek flags. Leaflets that depicted pigs were scattered across the square.

“There is a (unofficial) mosque near here but we’re afraid to go there,” said a 30-year old migrant from Bangladesh, who gave his name as Shamsul. “Sometimes Greeks in the neighbourhood threaten to kill us.”

Margarita Vassilatou, 56, who has lived in the square for more than 35 years, said she wanted to leave as a result of the immigrants.

In another, more central square in front of Athens university, about 2,000 Muslim men and women prayed peacefully in front of the neo-classical university and ancient Greek statues. –Reuters