The region of Flanders in northern Belgium will, from now on, have to allow mosques on its territory to receive foreign funding. This is the result of a ruling by the Belgian Constitutional Court, which overturned previous provisions in a Flemish decree prohibiting local religious communities from receiving foreign funding or support, Belgian news agency, Belga reported Friday.
In 2021, the decree laid down a number of strict conditions for the recognition of religious communities including a ban on foreign funding, and a compulsory register for all donations over 1,000 euros.
However, For Diyanet, the Turkish directorate of religious affairs, these new measures were problematic, prompting the Belgian branch of the Turkish government body to take the case to Belgium’s Constitutional Court. Diyanet mosques work almost exclusively with Turkish state imams, who Turkiye pays.
The court now ruled that the provision violates freedom of religion and worship. Furthermore, the condition is not sufficiently precise, the judges ruled, noted Belga. According to rough estimates , there are 200 mosques and Muslim worship places in Flanders.
Belgium is divided on linguistic lines into a Dutch-speaking Flanders region in the north and a French-speaking Wallonia region in the South. Flanders accounts for 45% of Belgium’s territory, but it has the country’s largest population, with 6.65 million or 57% out of a total of 11.4 million.
Source: Kuwait News Agency