Austria’s government is advancing plans for a constitutional ban on “political Islam,” with Integration Minister Claudia Bauer presenting a 24-point proposal that includes outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood, tightening oversight of Islamic religious education, and combating Islamist influence in public institutions.
The 24-point package is being discussed within the governing coalition. It reportedly includes a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as stronger state oversight of the qualifications of Islamic religious teachers and their teaching materials. The proposal is not yet law.
Chancellor Christian Stocker has declared political Islam “incompatible with democracy and Western values,” warning: “I do not want our children and grandchildren to grow up in an Islamic state.”
Stocker insisted that religious freedom does not extend to denying women equal rights, treating believers and nonbelievers differently, or rejecting Austria’s laws, courts and democratic institutions.
The distinction Austria is attempting to draw is consequential: religious liberty protects individual belief and peaceful religious practice; it does not prevent a democratic state from acting against movements that seek to replace constitutional equality, the rule of law, or democratic institutions with a political-religious order.
The proposal will face an obvious legal test. “Political Islam” must be defined with enough precision to target anti-democratic and extremist organizing without treating ordinary Muslim citizens or private religious observance as suspect. Austria’s Islamic Religious Community has said the term needs a clear legal definition, while stating that it supports the democratic constitutional state against extremism.
A constitutional measure would also require broad parliamentary backing. What happens next will depend on whether the coalition can produce legislation that is both enforceable and compatible with Austria’s constitutional and human-rights commitments.
Religious freedom is not a license to build a parallel state.