Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party has proposed a bill that would ban face covering in all public spaces and regulate funding for mosques, as it develops French-style rules for followers of Islam.
Around 2.3 million Muslims live in Italy, where they make up around 4 per cent of the population. France introduced a ban on head coverings in 2011, a move which was followed by Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland among others in Europe. “We have borrowed this norm from secular France, but with a deep conviction that no foreign funding can bend our sovereignty and our civility,” said parliamentary deputy Andrea Delmastro.
Proponents say the law would introduce “concrete tools” that would prevent the “entrenchment” of Islamist extremism in Italy. “The law against Islamic separatism is necessary to protect the Italian identity, the security of our citizens and the freedom of women,” said Galeazzo Bignami, a deputy minister with Ms Meloni's Brothers of Italy party.
“It is not about limiting religious freedom,” he added, “but it will prevent it from being used to justify practices incompatible with our constitution and our society.”
The proposed measures include a “clampdown on foreign funding” for mosques to prevent the influence of groups using religion as a platform for political influence, Mr Bignami said. It seeks “more severe penalties” on “forced marriages” and other dangers to vulnerable members of society.
Politicians raised the case last week of a Bangladeshi girl in the city of Rimini whose parents were forcing her into an arranged marriage, and of Saman Abbas, a Pakistani teenager who was killed in an “honour killing” in Italy in 2021.
“Religious freedom is sacred, but it must be exercised in sunlight, with respect to our constitution and the principles of the Italian state,” Mr Delmastro wrote on social media. “Let's not turn our heads any more. We defend Italy, its law and its freedom,” he said.
The party has also painted the measure in terms of the culture wars that have raged across Europe. “With this bill, we therefore aim to defend our value system, our laws, our culture, welcoming anyone who wishes to integrate, but not accepting those who impose their own culture,” said Francesco Filini, another deputy of the party.
