Five days after the deadly terrorist attack that took place on Monday night in central Vienna with five dead – among them the 20-year-old perpetrator – and 23 injured, the closure of two mosques in the Austrian capital, where the perpetrator was said to be active and radicalized, was announced in the afternoon at a press conference by the Minister of Integration, Susanne Raab.
The closure of the two mosques, in the 12th and 16th districts of Vienna, was ordered after a meeting between Susanne Raab and Interior Minister Karl Nehammer with the President of the Islamic Religious Community, Ümit Vural, regarding the removal of their operating license (legal status) and the dissolution of the associations.
The Minister of Integration said that the Islamic Religious Community was informed on Thursday by the Ministry of Interior that the perpetrator often visited the two mosques, one of which, the one in the 12th district, was established as a parish by the Islamic Religious Community in 2016.
Immediate closure is in the interest of public safety, as there is no “positive attitude towards society and the state” required by the law for Islam, Susanne Raab said.
The minister announced that the other mosque in the 16th district of the Austrian capital is not under the jurisdiction of the Islamic Religious Community, and in this case a process of dissolution has begun, under the law on associations.
According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this mosque also favoured the radicalization of the perpetrator of the terrorist attack, and in this mosque are said to have been regularly, among others, the Islamist Muhammad M. and Lorenz K., who has been sentenced to nine years in prison as a terrorist of the Islamic State.
The minister clarified that the closure of the two mosques is not an attack on one religion, but “a common struggle against the exploitation of religion for radicalism”.
In relation to the radicalization in these mosques, it mainly concerns the ideology that is being transferred, which may not yet have a criminal significance, but one must also take “precautionary action against this fertile ground of ideology,” the Austrian Minister of Integration Susanne Raab said.
Source: ANA-MPA