Austria’s new conservative government is cracking down against anti-democratic Islamists.
Mosques that enable hardline Imans, whose extreme views threaten to radicalize young, impressionable worshippers and pose a direct threat to the core tenets that enable Western societies to flourish will be shut down. (Daily Mail)
Austria said it could expel up to 60 Turkish-funded imams and their families and would shut down seven mosques as part of a crackdown on ‘political Islam’ that was described as ‘just the beginning’, triggering fury in Ankara.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the government is shutting a hardline Turkish nationalist mosque in Vienna and dissolving a group called the Arab Religious Community that runs six mosques.
His coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe’s migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and clamp down on benefits for new immigrants and refugees.
In a previous job as minister in charge of integration, Chancellor Kurz oversaw the passing of a tough ‘law on Islam’ in 2015, which banned foreign funding of religious groups and created a duty for Muslim societies to have ‘a positive fundamental view towards (Austria’s) state and society’.
One of the main planks of Austria’s governing coalition is to combat radical Islam. The country of 8.8 million has roughly 600,000 Muslim inhabitants.