Under the tagline #Unteilbar – which translates as #Indivisible – close to 250,000 men and women took to the streets on a warm and sunny October day in Berlin. Long expected as “the climax of a summer of protests”1, the demonstration sought to address a number of progressive social causes; yet it was race and…
At the end of April, the French daily Le Parisien published a manifesto on what is being referred to as ‘new anti-Semitism’. About 300 renowned personalities from the most diverse sections of society signed the appeal, including among others former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Essentially, the term ‘new anti-Semitism’ is taken to…
For years, German public debates have asked whether ‘Islam’ has a rightful place in the country and whether it can be considered part of its identity. Yet the reasons given by those that see the religion as alien to Germany have fluctuated over time. Shifting discourses of Islam’s ‘incompatibility’ First of all, as the years…
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s rapid rise to power has always been centred on his promise to curb immigration and uphold Austria’s identity as a Christian nation. Since taking office in December, 2017, Kurz has sought to make good on this pledge by taking a hard-line stance on immigration. Now, Kurz is closing in on another…
Germany’s long-running judicial wrangling over the ability of Muslim women to wear the hijab in public employment has been enriched by a further episode. The Bavarian Administrative Court in Munich decreed that prohibitions banning court personnel from wearing the Islamic headcovering were permissible. Decisions based on formal criteria The case concerns a legal trainee who,…
