06. 09. 10. - 12:00

Majority reject 'more mosques and minarets' appeal

Most Austrians are against the construction of additional minarets, according to a poll.

Viennese research agency Karmasin said today (Mon) 52 per cent opposed calls for further mosques with the distinctive minarets. Magazine profil reports that 35 per cent of Austrians questioned for the study backed the additional constructions, while 13 per cent did not want to gave their opinion.

There are just three mosques with minarets in Austria – in Vienna, Telfs in Tyrol and Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria – but Austrian Islamic Denomination (IGGiÖ) head Anas Schakfeh’s call for a "visible" mosque in all nine provincial capitals started a heated debate recently.

Freedom Party (FPÖ) officials reacted furiously to the statement. The right-wing party’s general secretary Harald Vilimsky demanded an "integration stop" for people from "Islamic countries". He angered NGOs and left-wing political rivals by branding mosques as "hotbeds of radical Islam".

Schakfeh stressed his was nothing new as he has been campaigning for more mosques with minarets for years.

Analysts have said the debate will help the FPÖ to gain in the 10 October Vienna city parliament election.

Meanwhile, Federal President Heinz Fischer criticised the IGGiÖ chief. Fischer said Schakfeh chose a "bad time" for making this appeal considering the upcoming ballots in Styria (26 September) and Vienna.

Fischer also hit out at the FPÖ’s Styrian branch over its mosque shooter game "Moschee ba ba" (Bye, bye mosque). The president stressed a lack of arguments in a debate must not be replaced by aggression.

Prosecutors may call for FPÖ Styria boss Gerhard Kurzmann to lose his immunity so they can press agitation charges against him over the online PC game.

Political analysts and newspaper columnists are at odds over whether the party’s Styrian branch will be boosted by the launch of the controversial game which was recently taken offline again.

The FPÖ won just 4.6 per cent in the 2005 provincial election in Styria which took place around half a year after late FPÖ boss Jörg Haider and all federal FPÖ ministers left the party to set up the Alliance for the Future of Austria.

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