Austria’s right-wing government plans to shut down seven mosques and expel up to 40 imams in what it said was ‘just the beginning’ of a push against Islamist ideology and foreign funding of religious groups. 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’. READ MORE
