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Thursday 26 Feb 2015 - 12:18 Makkah mean time-7-5-1436  Image from the Internet Vienna (IINA) – Austria's parliament on Wednesday passed a law banning foreign sources of financing to Muslim organizations, in a bid to avoid extremism, called an “Islam of European character”.
This is not the only initiative in Europe, as a similar notion of banning foreign funding of Islamic organizations was raised by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls earlier this month.
The new law aims to curb the influence of foreign Muslim nations, organizations and funding at a time when concerns are rising about the spread of extremist Islam, conservative Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz said.
Although the legislation offers Austrian Muslims a mix of increased rights and obligations in practicing their faith in Austria, it has generated opposition from several quarters, including Austrian Muslim groups that call it "discrimination" that imposes restrictions on Islam.
Muslims make up roughly 560,000 of Austria's total population of 8.5 million. They are mostly of Turkish and Bosnian origin, as well as Chechen and Iranian ethnicities.
The new legislation bans Islamic cultural organizations and imams in Austria from receiving funding from abroad. It also requires the nearly 450 Muslim organizations in the country to demonstrate a "positive approach towards society and the state" in order to continue receiving official licensing.
Imams will be obliged to be able to speak German under the law, a bid to make their comments more accessible and transparent, while also facilitating the fuller integration of Islam into wider Austrian society.
The legislation also provides for Muslims to be able to consult Islamic clerics on the staffs of hospitals, retirement homes, prisons and in the armed forces. Muslims in Austria will also have the right to halal meals in those institutions as well as in public schools, and will be allowed to skip work on Islamic holidays.
For his part, Turkey's leading Muslim cleric, Mehmet Gormez, has decried the bill as "a 100-year regression," arguing that no complaints have ever been lodged about the fact that Turkey funds many imams in Austria.
However, the Integration Minister said that the legislation was designed to "clearly combat" the growing influence of radical Islam.
"We want a future in which increasing numbers of imams have grown up in Austria speaking German, and can in that way serve as positive examples for young Muslims," Kurz explained ahead of the vote.
AB/IINA
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