Austria’s integration minister drafts a constitutional ban and will not rule out the state-recognised mosque body
Claudia Bauer told APA on 5 September she wants the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hizb ut-Tahrir outlawed — and that the IGGÖ, Austria’s official Islamic religious community, could be caught by it.
Bauer, the ÖVP minister who holds the Europe, integration, family and religious-affairs (Kultus) portfolios, told the Austrian news agency APA on Saturday 5 September that she intends to send coalition partners a first draft of a constitutional ban on political Islam. The plan, still in draft, would outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hizb ut-Tahrir. Asked whether the Islamic Religious Community in Austria could also be affected, Bauer said: “I don’t think we can rule it out.” She said political Islam had “also crept into established institutions” and demanded the religious community state “where the line is here,” adding that on measures against radicalisation and extremism she had in the past “seen little to nothing.” The legal gap she is targeting is narrow and real: at present only the symbols are banned in Austria; associations can still be founded.
IGGÖ President Ümit Vural is demanding a clear and legally sound definition so that the entire faith community does not fall under general suspicion. The IGGÖ issued a written statement the same day saying it was following the announcement closely and reaffirming a position it says it has held for years — that it rejects every form of politically extremist instrumentalisation of religion and every rejection of the democratic rule of law. Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig of the SPÖ criticised the suggestion that the IGGÖ could be affected; the government recently ended its cooperation with the deradicalisation body Derad. Chancellor Christian Stocker has backed a ban on political Islam and the Directorate for State Security welcomed the initiative. Nothing has been tabled.
Assessment: Vural’s demand for a definition is not a defensive reflex; it is the load-bearing question, and Europe has already answered it badly twice. The French National Assembly passed its EU-listing resolution 157–101 on 22 January. The Dutch House approved a Wilders motion in March — while the AIVD holds that the Brotherhood does not exist in the Netherlands as a structured organisation, which makes a ban close to unenforceable. Austria’s draft will meet the same wall, and Bauer’s “crept into established institutions” formula is what happens when you cannot find the entity: the target widens from an organisation to a disposition. Note also that almost every English-language version of this story descends from one APA interview.