New mosques may soon be banned in much of Italy.
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The anti-immigration Northern League party – political allies of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – is piloting a bill through parliament to impose strict regulations that will effectively block the construction of nearly all mosques.
Estimating that permission for a new mosque or prayer hall is granted somewhere in the centre of world Catholicism every four days, Northern League parliamentarian Andrea Gibelli said: ‘I consider this to be an unfettered colonisation of our culture.’
Mr Gibelli, the author of the bill, said mosques discourage integration and ‘are often places of cultural indoctrination, sometimes linked to international terrorism’.
The League has already used its control of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4269 to push through tough new laws against illegal immigrants.And now if they can push its bill through parliament – where Berlusconi’s coalition has a strong majority – Italy will soon have a new law effectively blocking the construction of new mosques in much of the country.
It has now turned its attention to the newcomers’ religion, emboldened by polls showing many Italians mistrust Muslims and a third do not want a mosque in their neighbourhood.
There are more than one million Muslims in Italy.
The Northern League has ‘made life difficult for the Islamic component (of immigrants in Italy) in every sense and especially with regards to places of worship’, the president of the Islamic Cultural Istitute of Milan, Abdel Hamid Sha”ari,said.
Not just recent or illegal immigrants feel unwelcome, but also established Muslim residents like Jihad Amro, who said: ‘I have paid taxes for 17 years but I still don’t feel at home.’
‘There are still situations where I feel uncomfortable or strange because they (Italians) don’t see me as someone who is integrated,’ Amro, a Palestinian, said.
The League’s anti-Muslim protests have often made headlines, such as when Roberto Calderoli, now a http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4459, walked his pet pig on a proposed mosque site to defile the soil.
The League runs many town halls in the prosperous north, the homeland it calls ‘Padania’ which is also home to a majority of Italy’s immigrants.
Arguing that Muslims can ‘pray anywhere’ and do not need a mosque, Berlusconi’s allies have blocked Muslims from building their own place of worship in Italy’s business capital, Milan.