Italy refers anti-mosque law to court

Rome, NU Online
Facing accusations of targeting the country’s more than one million Muslims, the Italian government has taken steps against new building regulations which made it impossible for Muslims to construct any new mosques.<>

The laws, now referred to court by the government, were introduced last January in Lombardy, the country's most populous region which includes the capital Milan.

Widely known as “anti-mosque” laws, the new regulations stipulate that anyone seeking to build a new place of worship for a religion not officially recognized by the state would be subject to an extensive list of special restrictions, ranging from the size of associated parking facilities, to the outward appearance of the buildings.

Since Islam is the only major religion not recognized by the Italian state, the new rules have been seen as being specifically discriminative against Italy's more than one million Muslims.

The laws also allow Lombardy’s officials to call a local referendum about building any new place of worship in the region.

Facing outcry on what is regarded as a blatantly discriminatory move, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's center-left government said on Friday they had decided to refer the new rules to the Constitutional Court for review, the AFP news agency reported.

The decision elicited a harsh response from Matteo Salvini, an outspoken, up-and-coming anti-Islam politician who heads the right-wing Northern League, according to AFP.

"Renzi and [Interior Minister Angelino] Alfano -- here are the new imams," Salvini wrote on his Facebook page.

Critics say the legislation breaches Italy's constitution on several grounds and is bound to be overturned by the Constitutional Court.

Others believe that Italy’s Constitutional Court is bound to revoke the discriminatory law as it breaches the country’s constitution on several grounds.

The primary religion in Italy is Roman Catholicism, and about 80 percent of the population identifies as Roman Catholic or as a member of another Christian faith, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Italy has a Muslim population of some 1.7 million, including 20,000 reverts, according to the figures released by Istat, the national statistics agency.

Since the early 1980s, Italy has given taxpayer revenue to religious faiths the government recognizes.

The funds are used largely for the upkeep of religious structures, including Jewish and Buddhist temples, Greek Orthodox churches, and Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations. But mosques aren’t on the list.

The Mosque (or Masjid) of Rome -- completed in 1995 as a goodwill gesture to help diminish a long history of animosity between Catholics and Muslims -- is the only Islamic structure that has received government recognition, and funds, in Italy.

A Pew Research Center poll released in January found that Italians -- at 63 percent of respondents -- lead Western Europe in holding "unfavorable" views of Muslims.

Greeks came in second, at 53 percent, while a majority of French, British and Germans viewed Muslims favorably.

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq