of 40-60 Atip imams which are currently being reviewed.

Atib acts as an umbrella organization of the Turkish Islamic Mosque communities in Austria, and represents more than 60 associations with more than 100,000 members. The association is considered as an extension of the Turkish religious authority Diyanet and Erdogan's AKP party.

Solidarity

The attitude of the right-wing conservative government in Vienna is "that we now tolerate hate speech under the disguise of religion," as Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said, is based not only on broad popular support, but also on the opposition parties and representatives of liberal Islam.

The timing of the announcement just before the Turkish election, which could play into the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is criticized. But there is a warning voice by the extremism expert Thomas Schmidinger, whoassumes such a move will to drive Arab Muslims underground.

As well, harsh criticism is being uttered by IGGÖ President Ibrahim Olgun, who criticized the date of the anncounced closure during Ramadan, and who accuses the Austrian government of "discrediting the religious community as politically calculated". However, there are new - still unconfirmed - revelations in a reputable left-liberal Austrian daily, according to which the announcement of the closure of the Arab mosques could have preceded an intrigue in the IGGÖ against the Arab association.

Not one reason

There is not one single reason for the Austrian attitude, but simmering points of conflict or misunderstandings that have led to mistrust of some mosques and mosque associations.

The last flash point were probably photos from an Atib mosque in Vienna: On the occasion