Cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, the Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade, fire­works and of­fi­cial func­tions will be re­placed with a Na­tion­al Day of Prayer and Re­flec­tion on Au­gust 31.

The event, in­tend­ed to unite cit­i­zens of all faiths and back­grounds, will fo­cus on seek­ing guid­ance and strength dur­ing what the Gov­ern­ment de­scribes as “a chal­leng­ing time,” while en­cour­ag­ing na­tion­al re­flec­tion on the coun­try’s progress and fu­ture, a state­ment from the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said.

In line with its se­cu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ties, the Gov­ern­ment has al­so can­celled the tra­di­tion­al State-spon­sored fire­works dis­play. In­stead, on­ly “silent” fire­works will be per­mit­ted for pri­vate use, aimed at re­duc­ing noise dis­tur­bances for vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als and pets, while main­tain­ing pub­lic calm.