Austria to shut seven mosques and expel imams

Austria has said it will close down seven mosques and expel imams who it says are funded by foreign countries.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the move was a crackdown on political Islam. Some mosques are suspected of having links to Turkish nationalists. In April images emerged showing children in Turkish army uniforms re-enacting World War One’s Battle of Gallipoli.

The Turkish president’s office called Austria’s move “Islamophobic, racist and discriminatory”.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted that it was “an attempt to target Muslim communities for the sake of scoring cheap political points”.

The Austrian government says 60 of the 260 imams in the country are being investigated, 40 of whom belong to ATIB, a Muslim group close to the Turkish government.

The Gallipoli re-enactment performance took place in a mosque run by the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves group, in Vienna-Favoriten district. The group has branches in several countries.

Austrian media report that the child actors played dead and were covered with Turkish flags. The mosque has also been linked to photos of children doing the Grey Wolves greeting.