PN to celebrate breaking of Ramadan fast

The Nationalist Party’s equal opportunities forum (FOIPN) will be hosting members of the Muslim community to celebrate the breaking of the Ramadan fast on Monday, 21 July.

The event, Iftar, will be preceded by the Al Maghreb prayer and then proceed with a feast of halal food. Opposition leader Simon Busuttil will attend.

The event is the first of its kind for the PN, after the Labour Party held a similar Iftar reception in 2011.

Back then, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat used the occasion to brandish his party’s “secular beliefs in a predominantly Christian society.”

Muscat had said on the occasion that he “expected some criticism” for celebrating Iftar. “It’s what strengthens Labour as an organisation that wants to break down barriers and that believes in an open society that respects everybody.”

Also in attendance were Imam Mohammad El Saad and Monsignor Joe Vella Gauci, the Maltese representative in COMECE, the Bishops’ Conference commission in the European Community.

Vella Gauci today is Malta’s ambassador to UNESCO.