AUSTRIA MOVES TOWARDS HEADSCARF BAN IN SCHOOLS FOR UNDER 14S

Sun 23 November 2025:

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), the largest faction in parliament, has called for a series of harsh anti-Islam measures, including a blanket ban on headscarves in schools, a new “law banning political Islam”, and an immediate halt to mass immigration.

Responding to plans by the ruling coalition government to introduce a headscarf ban for girls under 14 in school starting in the 2026/2027 year, the FPO demanded further action, believing the measure doesn’t go far enough in tackling “Islamic extremism.”

In a statement, the party claimed: “Firstly, the ‘new mass migration’ must be stopped immediately and, secondly, political Islam must be clearly prohibited by law.

“The headscarf is a symbol of political Islam, the oppression and paternalism of women, and therefore has no place in our schools.”

The FPO believe the governments plans are insufficient and hope they can pressure the ruling coalition to implement harsher anti-Islam measures amid rising Islamophobia in Austria’s political landscape.

The FPO became the strongest parliamentary faction with 28.8% of the vote in the most recent national elections and has repeatedly drawn criticism for well-documented Islamophobic and racist rhetoric.

A report by the Austrian NGO SOS Mitmensch cites a video shared by FPO leader Herbert Kickl portraying modern-day Austria as a nightmarish place, using darkened imagery to depict Muslims and Black people as threats.

SOS Mitmensch also highlighted remarks by FPO National Council members Dagmar Belakowitsch and Susanne Furst, who described Muslim schoolchildren as “disruptive” and framed them in terms consistent with far-wing extremist notions of “population exchange.”

In February 2025, a designated FPO municipal councillor in Hohenberg, in Lower Austria, posted a TikTok video in which he said: “You refugees already know where you belong: in the oven,” and added, “You Tschuschen, you and your families all belong in the chamber.”

“Tschuschen” is a derogatory Austrian German term for people of Southeast European or Middle Eastern origin. The reference to a “chamber” is widely understood as an allusion to Nazi gas chambers.

The video reportedly ended with the politician performing a “Hitler salute.”

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Islamophobia on the rise

Austria recorded the highest number of incidents of Islamophobia last year since records began in 2015, according to data released by Austria’s Documentation Centre on Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Racism.

Their annual report said the number of reported cases has risen in 2024, especially since the outbreak of the Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in 2023.

The first place where more cases were reported from October were witnessed in schools, the report said. In the education sector, a spike in anti-Muslim incidents were reported by parents, pupils and teachers alike.

Overall, 66.7% of the documented cases took place online and 33.7% offline while some 87.8% of the cases documented online concerned the spread of hate.

Muslims were dehumanised and compared to animals in online comments, according to the report.

It said 40.8% of all reported cases involved unequal treatment and 19.5% involved insults. The spread of hatred accounted for 8.9% and 2.6% involved physical assaults.

The remaining incidents were divided into the categories of vandalism (7.5%), police violence (7.3%), dangerous threats (3.2%), incitement to hatred (1.8%), bullying and stalking (0.8%) and other (7.7%)

In its report, the Documentation Centre emphasised that its statistics are a snapshot and that the actual number of cases is thought to be significantly higher.

War on political Islam

On 9 November 2020, Austria carried out a massive police operation, dubbed Operation Luxor, involving around 930 officers.

Heavily armed police raided more than 70 Muslim homes and institutions on trumped-up terrorism charges. No arrests were made, no convictions followed, yet the raids left lasting damage on the local Muslim community.

Press conferences and staged photo ops of then Interior Minister Karl Nehammer broadcast a clear warning: from now on, Muslims in Austria would be treated as a permanent security threat, their lives subjected to surveillance and control.

From this ideology arose a whole infrastructure: the state-funded Documentation Centre for Political Islam, the notorious “Islam Map” publicly listing Muslim institutions, the Vienna Forum, an international conference framing Muslims as security threats, and an expanded countering violent extremism (CVE) and counter-terrorism apparatus.

What began as far-right talking points, has now migrated into the mainstream, embraced even by centrist and liberal parties alike. Making the possibility of anti-Islam laws such as those suggested by the FPO more likely to become reality in the near future.

By RobCarter

This article is republished from 5 Pillars. Read the original article.