Austrian Reform

From the BBC:
"Austria passes controversial reforms to 1912 Islam law"

 

The Austrian parliament has passed controversial reforms to the country's century-old law on Islam.

The bill, which is partly aimed at tackling Islamist radicalism, gives Muslims more legal security but bans foreign funding for mosques and imams. Austria's Integration Minister, Sebastian Kurz, defended the reforms but Muslim leaders say they fail to treat them equally. The 1912 law made Islam an official religion in Austria. It has been widely held up as a model for Europe in dealing with Islam.  The new measures, first proposed three years ago, include the protection of religious holidays and training for imams. But Muslim groups say the ban on foreign funding is unfair as international support is still permitted for the Christian and Jewish faiths.  They say the legalisation reflects a widespread mistrust of Muslims and some are planning to contest it in the constitutional court. Mr Kurz told the BBC the reforms were a "milestone" for Austria and aimed to stop certain Muslim countries using financial means to exert "political influence". "What we want is to reduce the political influence and control from abroad and we want to give Islam the chance to develop freely within our society and in line with our common European values," he said.  Roughly half a million Muslims live in Austria today, around 6% of the population. Many of them have Turkish or Bosnian roots.

 

^ The first law was made in 1912 when Austria was the Austro-Hungarian Empire mainly because of the large Muslim population then living within their borders (ie the Balkans.) I don't see an issue with these new rules. It aims to give them some more protections (religious holidays, etc) but it also aims to stop the radicalization of Islam that has plagued the whole world in recent history. Muslims may complain that the Jews and Christians aren't affected by laws like these ones, but in the past 20+ years the main source of world terrorism is radical Muslims. It's clear that the policies of the past haven't helped to stop groups like Al-Qaeda or IS and so more needs to be done (by every country and every religion.) I always hear Muslims say that what these groups are doing doesn't represent them or their religion yet the majority do little to nothing to prevent the attacks and more and more people are running off to join the radicals - yet they all seem to go to arms if you print a cartoon. Tha doesn't seem like a good priority. It's not as though Austria is putting any Muslim in a camp. They are doing what any reasonable country would do to try and prevent the kind of radicalization of Islam that is happening and to stop an attack on their soil. ^

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31629543