Far-right groups are calling for a ban on the building of new mosques as part of a new campaign to stop the spread of radical Islam in Europe. Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang party teamed up with radical groups from Austria and Germany on Thursday to launch a Charter to “fight the Islamisation of West-European cities”.

“We are not opposed to freedom of religion but we don’t want Muslims to impose their way of life and traditions over here because much of it is not compatible with our way of life,” Vlaams Belang’s Filip Dewinter told Radio Netherlands Worldwide. “We can’t accept headscarves in our schools, forced marriages and the ritual slaughter of animals.”

In particular, the coalition called for a moratorium on new mosques, which they say “act as catalysts for the Islamisation of entire neighbourhoods.”

“We already have over 6,000 mosques in Europe, which are not only a place to worship but also a symbol of radicalisation, some financed by extreme groups in Saudi Arabia or Iran,” Mr Dewinter explained, citing a large new mosque being built in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. “Its minarets are six floors high, higher than the illuminations of the Feyenoord soccer stadium!” he cried. “These kinds of symbols have to stop.”

However, it is unclear how the group plans to tackle perceived threats such as the teaching of the Koran, apart from holding rallies in European cities with high immigrant populations.

Aside from Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), there was a notable absence of other political heavyweights during the press conference in the Flemish city of Antwerp. A spokesman for Italy’s Allianza Nazionale said he was unaware of the Charter, though his party too was looking at the issue of the new mosques. Dutch right-wing maverick politician Geert Wilders, who is currently producing a film about the danger of the Koran, also stayed away.

But Mr Dewinter seems unruffled by the paltry political support: “This movement may be small today but I am convinced it will grow into something major.”

Radio Netherlands, 17 January 2008

The four young men look unremarkable in Cologne’s downtown pedestrian zone. Now and then they press a pamphlet into somebody’s hand with a smile.

These young men handing out flyers work for an organization called “Pro Cologne”. They are gathering support in the otherwise liberal-minded and open city of Cologne to protest an enormous mosque slated for construction in the district of Ehrenfeld. Around 300 members of Pro Cologne have collected more than 20,000 signatures, and a few unsavory characters on the German far right hope to use their success as a way to win seats in state parliaments.

With a new political party called “Pro NRW” (Pro North-Rhine Westphalia), stemming from the Pro Cologne movement, two leaders named Markus Beisicht and Manfred Rouhs want to win enough votes to enter the state parliament in 2010. About a dozen Pro Cologne spinoffs are already preparing local campaigns across the state – in Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen and Bottrop, among other places. Where no new mosques are being planned, Beisicht says, the party will just fight smaller existing mosques.

The methods of the anti-mosque movement have been studied by far-right groups in other countries, like Austria’s FPÖ (“Austrian Freedom Party”) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) party. In November, Markus Beisicht gave a special presentation on the Cologne movement to FPÖ members in Graz. “We will lead our fight across Europe,” he told them, “whether it’s in Graz, Cologne or Vienna.” He’s invited friends from the FPÖ, Vlaams Belang and France’s National Front to a big “Anti-Islam Congress” in Cologne next September.

Spiegel Onlne, 3 January 2008