There is no right to a prayer space at McGill....

The Muslim Sutdents Association should be treated like other student groups, but they have no right to demand a prayer space.

Muslim students who say they just want to pray filed a complaint of discrimination yesterday against McGill University.

The Muslim students charge they are being forced by the university to "scrounge around" for a quiet and clean place to say their daily prayers.

While McGill's Christian and Jewish students have Hillel House, the Newman Centre and the Birks Chapel, all on campus, about 350 Muslim students are praying in corridors and stairwells, Sarah Elgazzar said.

"They are telling us we have to pay to pray, that we need to buy prime real estate in Montreal if we want to pray," said Elgazzar, a recent McGill graduate.

Until recently, Muslim students at the university had a designated prayer room where they gathered for daily prayers.

In May, however, the university, which is grappling with a space shortage, took over that space as well as another space occupied by the McGill Sexual Assault Centre.

Through negotiations with the university, the sexual assault centre found alternative space but the Muslim students and university officials have failed to find a solution.

Mohamed Sheibani, of the Muslim Students Association, said the university is flagrantly denying its responsibility and denying Muslim students their basic religious freedoms.

He said more than 30 Canadian schools, including Concordia University, Carleton University in Ottawa and the University of Toronto, provide interfaith or separate Muslim prayer spaces on campus.

McGill is "the most stubborn, disrespectful university I have ever dealt with," he said.

Why can't they build their own prayer space. And, by the way, Hillel is not a synagogue...