Switzerland now joins Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden, all of which currently have full or partial bans on religious and non-religious face coverings.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has announced her intention to significantly limit the number of people seeking asylum in Denmark. The aim, she said, is to preserve “social cohesion” in the country.
The Austrian Constitutional Court has ruled that Austria’s ban on the wearing of headscarves in public schools violates the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression and therefore is unconstitutional.
Germany’s ban on Hezbollah is a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. The ban appears aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allows Germany to claim that it has fully banned the group even if it has not.
Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms of Muslims can be curtailed if public displays of religiosity endanger the ideological and religious neutrality of the state.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced new measures aimed at countering political Islam in France. The changes would limit the role that foreign governments have in France in training imams, financing mosques and educating children.
The Court of Appeal, the second highest court in England and Wales after the Supreme Court, has ruled that the Islamic marriage contract, known as nikah in Arabic, is not valid under English law.
Wilders asserts that the government’s decade-long legal war against him is far from a principled pursuit of justice, and instead politically motivated, aimed at silencing his criticism of multiculturalism and mass migration from the Muslim world.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to toughen sentencing guidelines for convicted terrorists after a newly-released prisoner carried out a jihadist attack in London.
This year’s Christmas season has been marked by Islam-related controversies in nearly every European country.
Austria is poised to become the vanguard of Western Europe’s resistance to mass migration from the Muslim world.
