AUSTRIA MUSLIMS CRITICIZE ISLAM BILL

Vienna, 22 Dzulhijjah 1435/16 October 2014 (MINA) – A new amendment to Austria’s century-old law on Islam has sparked Muslim concerns, appearing in the middle of rising tirade of Islamophobia and seen as a bid by the government to create its own “state-guided” Islam.

“There is a political motivation behind this bill,” Dr. Farid Hafez, a scholar from Salzburg University, Onislam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Wednesday.

Hafez further described the amendment as “institutionalized Islamophobia”, referring to the rise of euroskeptic and right-wing political groups in Austria.

Announced earlier in October, Austria’s new Law on Islam will prohibit Muslim organizations receiving funding from abroad.

This will also affect imams who work in Austria but are financially supported by Turkey.

Currently, some 300 imams work in the country, including 65 Turkish scholars.

It will also compel Muslim organizations to teach at least one lesson in German, and states that officials within the community will be dismissed if they are found to have a criminal conviction or are considered to pose a threat to public safety.

The bill seeks to bar “influences from abroad” according to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration Sebastian Kurz, from the center-right Austrian People’s Party.

Kurz said the amendment was needed as time and conditions have changed, claiming the draft bill was to prevent extremism.

“The clear message should be that there is no contradiction between being a faithful Muslim and a proud Austrian,” Kurz said.

Austrian Muslims are estimated at about half a million or nearly 6 percent of the European country’s 8 million population.

In Vienna, Islam is the second-largest religious grouping, after Roman Catholicism.

Equality

Protesting the new bill, an academic from Salzburg University’s law department, Metin Akyurek, called “equality between followers of three Abrahamic faiths.

Akyurek asked for the rights enjoyed by Protestant, Catholic and Jewish groups to be extended to the Islamic community to guarantee “equality” in Austrian society.

The law’s condition on imams training was also criticized by Akyurek as against the right to teach religion based on the European Union’s human rights laws.

He also questioned the timing of the law as Muslim communities come under suspicion over fears about extremism.

The president of the Austrian Islamic Community, Fuat Sanac, earlier announced they would appeal to Austria’s constitutional court to halt the amendment, which “risked humiliating” the country’s Muslim population.

Sanac, on Saturday, said the Muslim community did not want to be treated as “second-class” citizens.

The appeals will be evaluated until November 7 by the constitutional council.

The Muslim Youth of Austria (MJÖ) has also criticized the bill last week.

MJÖ board member Dudu Kücükgöl said the bill had caused “great indignation” and that if it became law it could mean that some Muslim organizations could no longer exist and their religious work would be “driven underground”.(T/P008/P3)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)