Austria bans foreign funding for mosques

New law requires imams to speak German and Muslim organisations to demonstrate a "positive approach towards society and the state" in order to continue receiving official licensing 

Austria’s parliament has passed a controversial bill that bans the foreign funding for mosques and imams. The bill, which amends Austria’s 1912 law on Islam, is aimed at tackling foreign radical Islamist indoctrination and promoting an “Islam of European character”.

The law now requires imams to speak German so as to render their messages more accessible and transparent, and allow for a deeper integration of Islam into Austrian society. If the nearly 440 Muslim organisations in the country want to continue receiving official licensing, they must now demonstrate a “positive approach towards society and the state”.

“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,” Austrian Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz explained.

The new law will also give Muslims in Austria the right to skip work on Islamic holidays, as well as the right to halal meals in hospitals, retirement homes, prisons, the armed forces, and public school. Muslims will now have the right to consult Islamic clerics on the staffs of hospitals, prisons, retirement homes, and the armed forces.

Austria’s main Islamic group, the Islamic Religious Authority of Austria, approved the bill but other Muslim organisations have criticised the new ban on mosque funding as discriminatory as foreign funding is still allowed for the Christian and Jewish faiths.

Turkey’s head of religious affairs, Mehmet Gormez, condemned the legislation.

“Austria will go back 100 years in freedom with its Islam bill,” Gomez qas quoted as saying by Turkish state-funded Anadolu news agency.

Around half a million Muslims live in Austria today, around 6% of the population. Most of them are ethnic Chechens and Iranians or have Turkish and Bosnian roots.