Islamophobia Watch

VIENNA — The southernmost Austrian state of Carinthia has passed a law effectively banning the construction of mosques, drawing fire from the opposition and Muslims for religious freedom violations.

"I can only recommend to all to have the courage to stand up effectively against this Islamisation that is creeping through Europe and represents a totally different culture," Governor Joerg Haider was quoted as saying by Reuters. "We are really the pioneers on this," added Haider, also the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Future of Austria party.

The law requires plans for any building of "extraordinary architecture or size" to be approved by a commission to judge its compatibility with the standard look of towns. This means that mosques would stand little chance of permits.

Islam Online, 13 February 2008

Vandals damaged or destroyed dozens of graves belonging to Muslims in the Austrian city of Graz, heightening tensions in the southern city where a local politician made disparaging comments about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Police in Graz, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Vienna, said about 60 gravestones belonging to Muslims were found overturned or broken in the central cemetery, but said it was unclear when the vandalism took place. Officials said they could not rule out the possibility that extreme-right groups active in the city may have been behind the attack.

Tensions have risen in Graz since a local female politician from the right-wing Freedom Party disparaged the Prophet Muhammad, calling him a "child molester" who wrote the Quran during "fits of epilepsy."

Al Arabiya, 6 February 2008

A far-right party in the Austrian state of Carinthia, led by the notorious right-wing politician Jörg Haider, is trying to ban the construction of mosques and minarets. They've presented a draft law designed to prohibit "unusual" buildings that don't fit in with traditional architecture.

In the latest anti-Islam initiative by right-wing politicians in Austria, the government in the state of Carinthia, which is led by right-wing populist Jörg Haider, has presented a bill that would hinder the future building of mosques in the state.

"With the help of this law, it will be de facto impossible to construct mosques or minarets in Carinthia," Uwe Scheuch, the minister responsible for urban planning, told journalists Saturday at a press conference where he presented the draft law. Scheuch, who belongs to Haider's right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) party, insisted, however, that the law would not infringe on Austria's constitutional right to freedom of religion.

BZÖ will need the support of the conservative Austrian People's Party if it is to get the draft law passed in the state government. That seems assured, however, as the People's Party had asked the state government last year to prepare a draft law to ban the construction of mosques and minarets.

The draft law reflects a growing wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Austria, where Muslims make up around 4 percent of the population. Another Austrian state, Vorarlberg, which has the highest proportion of Muslims in Austria, is also considering a ban on minarets.

Erwin Pröll, the governor of the state of Lower Austria, who belongs to the People's Party, recently described minarets as "alien" to Austrian culture in a television interview. Susanne Winter, a politician for the right-wing Freedom Party, which Haider used to belong to before splitting off to set up the BZÖ, called the Prophet Muhammad a "child molester" during a recent election campaign.

Spiegel Online, 28 January 2008

City council elections in the south-eastern Austrian city of Graz on Sunday failed to result in significant support for a local candidate for the far-right Freedom Party (FP) who had lashed out against Islam in a highly controversial campaign. The top-seeded FP candidate Susanne Winter scored only moderate wins for the party just days after she called the Muslim prophet Mohammed a "child molester" and called for Islam to be pushed "back where it belonged, beyond the Mediterranean Sea".

Voters in Graz, however, seemed only moderately impressed by Winter's Islam-bashing. Official results showed the FP gained 3.1 per cent, but remained below expectations with 11.1 per cent. Various polls had showed the party would score between 10 and 13 per cent.

Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said the FP had reached their goal of getting into the double digits. Winter pursued her campaign "in the face of strong antagonism, defamation and scandalous threats of violence against her," he was quoted as saying by the Austrian press agency.

Winter's remarks were followed by a public outcry and triggered an intensive debate about Islamophobia in Austria. According to political analysts, the FP's anti-Muslim campaign was a calculated gambit to appeal both to a radically xenophobe fringe among Austria's electorate as well as those alienated by immigration.

The Islam-bashing turned out a "non-starter" for the rightists, with the conservative People's Party and the Greens benefiting instead, analyst Wolfgang Bachmayer told the public broadcaster ORF.

Earth Times, 20 January 2008

Vienna –  Remarks by a right-wing politician denouncing Islam and accusing the Prophet Mohammed of having been a paedophile provoked widespread outrage in Austria on Monday, with authorities investigating whether they constituted hate speech.

Susanne Winter, a candidate for the Freedom Party in local elections in Graz in south-eastern Austria, said on Sunday that Mohammed's marriage to a 6-year-old girl would make the prophet a "paedophile in today's system". Speaking at a rally, Winter demanded that Islam should be "thrown back where it came from, beyond the Mediterranean Sea".

Winter later justified her attacks. "There is widespread child abuse by Muslim men," she was quoted as saying by the newspaper Oesterreich. "Why can't I say this? That has nothing to do with hate speech."

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 January 2008

See also Al Arabiya  and Spiegel Online

The four young men look unremarkable in Cologne's downtown pedestrian zone. Now and then they press a pamphlet into somebody's hand with a smile.

These young men handing out flyers work for an organization called "Pro Cologne". They are gathering support in the otherwise liberal-minded and open city of Cologne to protest an enormous mosque slated for construction in the district of Ehrenfeld. Around 300 members of Pro Cologne have collected more than 20,000 signatures, and a few unsavory characters on the German far right hope to use their success as a way to win seats in state parliaments.

With a new political party called "Pro NRW" (Pro North-Rhine Westphalia), stemming from the Pro Cologne movement, two leaders named Markus Beisicht and Manfred Rouhs want to win enough votes to enter the state parliament in 2010. About a dozen Pro Cologne spinoffs are already preparing local campaigns across the state – in Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen and Bottrop, among other places. Where no new mosques are being planned, Beisicht says, the party will just fight smaller existing mosques.

The methods of the anti-mosque movement have been studied by far-right groups in other countries, like Austria's FPÖ ("Austrian Freedom Party") and Belgium's Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest") party. In November, Markus Beisicht gave a special presentation on the Cologne movement to FPÖ members in Graz. "We will lead our fight across Europe," he told them, "whether it's in Graz, Cologne or Vienna." He's invited friends from the FPÖ, Vlaams Belang and France's National Front to a big "Anti-Islam Congress" in Cologne next September.

Spiegel Onlne, 3 January 2008

The provincial parliament in the southern Austrian province Carinthia called on its provincial government to prepare legislation banning the construction of mosques or minarets. The province's governor, the populist former leader of the rightist Freedom Party, Joerg Haider, had repeatedly called for anti-Muslim measures along those lines.

The proposal was adopted with the votes of the conservative People's Party, Freedom Party, and the support of the Alliance for Austria's Future, an equally rightist breakaway party from the Freedom Party, founded by Haider. Alliance floor leader Kurt Scheuch said his party wanted to prevent the creeping Islamization by radical forces. "We prefer churchbells to the muezzin's chants," he said.

Carinthia's Social Democrats and Greens, who had voted against the measure, slammed the proposal as a move to "prevent integration (and) hinder religious freedom" and called it an "open attack on democracy and the rule of law." The Social Democrats pointed out that currently there were no plans for for building mosques in the province, unmasking the proposal as an attempt to "attract the right-wing vote," Social Democrat floor leader Peter Kaiser said.

Earth Times, 25 October 2007

From London's docklands to the rolling hills of Tuscany, from southern Austria to Amsterdam and Cologne, the issue of Islamic architecture and its impact on citadels of "western civilisation" is increasingly contentious.

The far right is making capital from Islamophobia by focusing on the visible symbols of Islam in Europe. In Switzerland it is the far-right SVP that is setting the terms of the debate.

Next door in Austria the far right leader Jörg Haider is also calling for a ban in his province of Carinthia, even though there are few Muslims and no known plans for mosques. "Carinthia," he said, "will be a pioneer in the battle against radical Islam for the protection of our dominant western culture."

In Italy the mayors of Bologna and Genoa last month cancelled or delayed planning permission for mosques after a vociferous campaign by the far-right Northern League, one of whose leaders, Roberto Calderoli, threatened to stage a "day of pork" to offend Muslims and to take pigs to "defile" the site of the proposed mosque in Bologna.

While the far right makes the running, their noisy campaign is being supported more quietly by mainstream politicians and some Christian leaders. And on the left pro-secularist and anti-clericalist sentiment is also frequently ambivalent about Islamic building projects.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has voiced his unease over a large new mosque being built for the city's 120,000 Muslims in the Rhineland Roman Catholic stronghold. A similar scheme in Munich has also faced local protests.

The Bishop of Graz in Austria has been more emphatic. "Muslims should not build mosques which dominate town's skylines in countries like ours," said Bishop Egon Kapellari.

Guardian, 11 October 2007

Austrian right-wing firebrand Joerg Haider said on Monday he plans to change building laws to prevent mosques and minarets being erected in his home province of Carinthia. Haider, Carinthia's governor, said he would ask its parliament to amend the building code to would require towns and villages to consider "religious and cultural tradition" when dealing with construction requests.

"We don't want a clash of cultures and we don't want institutions which are alien to our culture being erected in Western Europe," Haider said in a statement. "Muslims have of course the right to practise their religion, but I oppose erecting mosques and minarets as centres to advertise the power of Islam."

Reuters, 27 August 2007