Slovakia, a former Communist state has passed a legislation banning Islam from being registered as a religion.
According to Express UK, the legislation hints at a dramatic changing attitude towards the religion in the past year across the continent, which has struggled to stem the escalating migrant crisis.
The former communist state has fiercely resisted European Union (EU) efforts to cope with an influx of migrants travelling into Europe by turning its back on the bloc’s introduction of migrant quotas.
But prime minister Robert Fico’s government has repeatedly said Islam has no place in Slovakia. Attitudes toward the religion appear to reflect fear of so-called Islamisation.
Parliament adopted a bill sponsored by the Slovak National Party (SNS), which requires a religion to have at least 50,000 members, up from 20,000, to qualify for state subsidies and to run its own schools.
The change will make it much harder to register Islam, which has just 2,000 supporters in Slovakia according to the latest census and no recognised mosques.
The Islamic Foundation in Slovakia estimates the number at around 5,000.
The SNS said the new law was meant to prevent speculative registrations of churches, such as the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has amassed followers worldwide.
SNS chairman Andrej Danko said:“We must do everything we can so that no mosque is built in the future.”
Courtesy: NewsBharati
