Italian Bill Targets Burqa and Religious Funding

In Italy, a pro­posed bill aims to estab­lish stricter con­trols on reli­gious attire in pub­lic spaces and to increase over­sight of for­eign finan­cial sup­port to reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties. On 8 Octo­ber 2025, Reuters report­ed that a new leg­isla­tive pro­pos­al in Italy aims to restrict the use of Islam­ic face cov­er­ings such as the burqa and reg­u­late reli­gious fund­ing in the coun­try. The arti­cle begins:

Italy’s right-wing gov­ern­ment has pre­sent­ed a bill to par­lia­ment that would ban Islam­ic face cov­er­ings in pub­lic places as part of a wider plan to reg­u­late reli­gious fund­ing from abroad. The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion also seeks to pre­vent pub­lic employ­ees, includ­ing teach­ers, from wear­ing reli­gious sym­bols, while impos­ing con­trols on char­i­ta­ble dona­tions from for­eign sources. Under the bill, indi­vid­u­als could be fined for non-com­pli­ance, and reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions would have to dis­close over­seas funds. Sup­port­ers argue the bill will bol­ster nation­al secu­ri­ty and safe­guard sec­u­lar­ism, but crit­ics warn it tar­gets Mus­lims dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly and could incite dis­crim­i­na­tion. The gov­ern­ment has defend­ed the mea­sures as nec­es­sary to main­tain pub­lic order and trans­paren­cy, although oppo­si­tion law­mak­ers and Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions have voiced con­cerns about free­dom of religion.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/new-italian-bill-targets-islamic-face-coverings-religious-funding-2025–10-08/

Key Points

• Italy’s pro­posed bill would ban Islam­ic face cov­er­ings such as the burqa in pub­lic and reg­u­late for­eign reli­gious funding.

• Pub­lic employ­ees may be pro­hib­it­ed from wear­ing vis­i­ble reli­gious sym­bols while at work.

• Char­i­ta­ble dona­tions from abroad to reli­gious groups would face new trans­paren­cy requirements.

• Crit­ics argue the leg­is­la­tion dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly tar­gets Mus­lims and risks fos­ter­ing discrimination.

Europe Targets Islamism: Burqa Bans and Muslim Brotherhood Funding Controls

Euro­pean gov­ern­ments have imple­ment­ed var­ied mea­sures tar­get­ing Islamist orga­ni­za­tions and activ­i­ties, rang­ing from police raids to leg­isla­tive restric­tions. Aus­tri­a’s Novem­ber 2020 Oper­a­tion Lux­or tar­get­ed sus­pect­ed Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­er­ship, mobi­liz­ing 930 offi­cials across 70 loca­tions with alle­ga­tions of ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion for­ma­tion and finan­cial sup­port for ter­ror­ism, though sev­er­al raids were lat­er judged unlaw­ful by Aus­tri­an courts. France has pur­sued aggres­sive action against Broth­er­hood-linked net­works accused of “entry­ism”, includ­ing the dis­so­lu­tion of the Col­lec­tif Con­tre l’Is­lam­o­pho­bie en France (CCIF), while Marine Le Pen has demand­ed a total ban on the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, call­ing it a total­i­tar­i­an move­ment infil­trat­ing French institutions.

Ger­many banned the Islamis­ches Zen­trum Ham­burg and its affil­i­ates in July 2024, seiz­ing assets and clos­ing mosques includ­ing the Ham­burg Blue Mosque over extrem­ism and anti­semitism alle­ga­tions. Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups have lob­bied exten­sive­ly against coun­tert­er­ror­ism poli­cies, claim­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion while receiv­ing near­ly €80 mil­lion in Euro­pean gov­ern­ment fund­ing since 2004. Face-cov­er­ing bans exist in France, Bel­gium, Aus­tria, Den­mark, the Nether­lands, and Bul­gar­ia, with Italy’s 2025 pro­posed leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sent­ing the lat­est Euro­pean effort to reg­u­late Islam­ic face cov­er­ings along­side for­eign reli­gious fund­ing restrictions.

Exter­nal references:

• Euro­pean Court upholds French full veil ban — BBC News
• Which coun­tries have a ‘burqa ban’? — Deutsche Welle
• Macron out­lines new law to pre­vent ‘Islamist sep­a­ratism’ in France — The Guardian

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.