Week 10: Blog post 2c: Europe: Austria: Austrian President calls on all women to wear headscarves in solidarity with Muslims to fight 'rampant Islamophobia'

     According to the Independent article, in Austria there are many debates and protests against the government regarding the President's call about the wear of headscarves on all  Muslim woman, and the partial prohibition of full-face Islamic veils, and it is the trend for overall Europe, not only for Austria. There have been several trouble with Islamophobia, so President urges Islamic women to put on headscarves, but some party member and students refuse it due to the freedom of expression. Meanwhile the Freedom Party pushed ahead the law partially restricting religious symbols, such as full-face Islamic veils or Christian cross, to prevent the terror attacks. The phenomenon doesn't occur only in Austria, but in Europe generally, France firstly having implemented a kind of law which have made Belgium, Bulgaria and others follow it. To sum up, there are several controversial concerning enforcing or restricting people to wear religious item across Europe as well as Austria.

   I have believed in Christianity since my birth, but there have been some people exposing displeasure to me due to my religion, and even slandering, then it gave me a mental trauma. I didn't know there are people who don't like Christian before I met that some people at school, and noticed a few of them hate me just because I am Christian. When I was 18 there were students who abused me in the presence of me and insult the religion and people surrounding me. The time became trauma for me and since then I have hesitated to express my belief to people and also felt a sense of guilt for myself about hesitating. There are many conflicts of opinions regarding religion and I also experienced it and get attacked by some people directly criticizing my credit, and it still affects my state of mental.

Dearden, Lizzie. "Austrian President calls on all women to wear headscarves in solidarity with Muslims to fight 'rampant Islamophobia'" The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 06 May 2017.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/austrian-president-alexander-van-der-bellen-all-women-headscarves-hijab-veils-burqa-muslim-a7707166.html