Dutch police in Segbroek decided to accommodate Muslim prisoners by painting compass arrows on the ceiling so that they knew which direction to face (toward Mecca, in the east) during prayer times. It seems like the typically polite and efficient Dutch thing to do.
Except that, it turns out, the police themselves should have used a compass.
The Segbroek police station in The Hague borrowed the idea of putting compass marks on ceilings from an Amsterdam hotel, the Dutch daily De Telegraaf reported on Friday.
Muslims pray five times a day, facing east in the direction of Mecca. But the arrows in Segbroek pointed west.
"This is a really gigantic, stupid blunder," a police spokesman told the De Telegraaf. "The faulty compass marks have been immediately corrected. It is a mystery for us how this could have possibly happened."
Undeterred, the plan is to expand the practice (now that they know what direction to paint the arrows).
All other police cells in the Dutch capital will soon get similar compass marks, the in-house newspaper of The Hague police said. The Netherlands is home to 1 million Muslims out of a population of more than 16 million.
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I have found most people have but the dimmest idea of compass direction when indoors (and not much better outdoors). But I prefer external absolutes; "install the Ethernet jack on the North wall of the room" as that stays the same no matter which way you're facing.
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