MAIL ONLINE: ‘There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger,' sign reads / Planners banned slogan saying it was like a McDonald's billboard / But Mahmood Ali, 54, wins right to keep sign after ruling is overturned / 'I wouldn't mind if my neighbours painted a cross on their house,' he says
A millionaire businessman today won his fight to keep a large Islamic slogan which he painted on the side of his house.
Mahmood Ali had been ordered to remove the words because they were a form of advertising comparable to a McDonald's billboard.
But he appealed the ruling, and successfully argued that the slogan was not disproportionately large or garish and did not damage the character of his neighbourhood.
The 54-year-old painted an Arabic message meaning, 'There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger,' on the side of his semi-detached eight-bedroom home in Newport, south Wales.
The council later ruled that he required planning permission to display the slogan, saying that it fell under the same category as a commercial advertisement.
Today planning inspector Tim Belcher overturned that initial ruling, judging that the sign was not so obtrusive that it damaged the interests of other locals. » | Higo Gye and Simon Tomlinson | Wednesday, February 20, 2013
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