Slovakia has banned mosques from being established anywhere in the country, effectively banning Islam from the Central European nation.
Slovak legislation, established in 2016, makes it impossible for Islam to be a state-recognized religion.
Slovakia has introduced measures making it the country with the toughest laws against Islam in all of Europe.
In 2016, two-thirds of deputies, including opposition ones, voted in favor of legislation submitted by the governmental Slovak National Party (SNS).
The laws required religious groups in the country to have 50,000 followers to run their schools, open religious establishments or qualify for government subsidies.
Previously, the law only required 20,000 signatures.
According to official sources, Islam, which was primarily targeted by the law, has less than 5,000 followers and zero mosques in the landlocked country in the center of Europe.
In 2016, then Prime Minister Robert Fico said in an interview, “I’m sorry, Islam has no place in Slovakia.
"I do not wish there were tens of thousands of Muslims.”"It is the duty of politicians to talk about these things very clearly and openly.
Based on the last census, religions with the required population threshold include the Roman Catholic Church, to which almost 70 percent of the Slovak population claim allegiance, the Protestant Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession which makes up 7 percent, the Greek Catholic Church at 4 percent, the Christian Reformed Church at 2 percent, and the Orthodox Church at 1 percent.
During the height of the migrant crisis, the Slovak interior minister at the time said, “We want to help Europe with the migration issue.
"We could take 800 Muslims, but we don’t have any mosques in Slovakia so how can Muslims be integrated if they are not going to like it here?”
Other politicians have also been open about the fact they do not want the Muslim population to grow in Slovakia.
“Islamization begins with kebab and is already underway in Bratislava. Let’s realize what we can face in five or ten years,” said SNS Chairman Andrej Danko in 2016.
“We must do everything we can to ensure that there is no mosque in future Slovakia,” Danko added.
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