Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Friday that the government is shutting down seven mosques, six of them make a group called the Arab Religious Community. The seventh mosque to be closed is running by ATIB, a Muslim group close to the Turkish government.
Austria’s policy regarding migrants and refugees is going harder, according to Friday’s press conference, 60 of the 260 imams in the country are being investigated, of whom 40 belong to ATIB.
“Parallel societies, political Islam and radicalisation tendencies have no place in our country,”
explained Chancellor Kurz whose country became a home to an estimated 600,000 Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin.
The Austrian government is dissolving another Islamic organisation called the Arab Religious Community, six of its mosques targeted for closure are run in Vienna, Upper Austria and Carinthia. The governments in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland want to restrict Muslim immigration to Europe, Europeans understood that the Muslim refugees often bring the certain degree of radicalization.
According to Sebastian Kurz, there is no place for radicalization in modern Austria. After Friday’s press conference, the Turkish president’s office called Austria’s decision to close seven mosques “Islamophobic, racist and discriminatory”. Meanwhile, Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl said the residence permits of about 40 imams are under review, they are going to be expelled.
