(CNN) Austria's right-wing government plans to shut down seven mosques and expel up to 60 imams in what it described as "just the beginning" of a crackdown on "political Islam" and foreign-funded Islamic communities. The measures mark the first time the country's controversial "law on Islam" -- introduced in 2015 when current Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was foreign minister -- is being invoked. The imams and mosques being targeted are suspected of breaching a rule that bans the foreign funding of Islamic communities. "Parallel societies, political Islam and radicalization have no place in our country." Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, whose anti-immigrant, anti-Islam Freedom Party is currently in a coalition government with Kurz's conservative People's Party, said the crackdown on "dubious finance flows" was "just the beginning" of the fight against "radical political Islam."

Source: CNN June 08, 2018 14:48 UTC