The fact that Sharia law (Islamic law derived from the Quran) and not the Austrian legal system once applied in Austria was previously relegated to the conspiracy theorists’ imagination. However, an example from Lower Austria now shows how some people are pandering to Muslim traditions.
Specifically, it concerns a teacher at the secondary school in Felixdorf in the Neustadt district of Vienna in Lower Austria. She wrote a letter to the parents asking the pupils to buy ‘only halal meat’ for cookery lessons. The reason: there are many Muslim pupils in the class.
It was not surprising that this letter from the teacher caused incomprehension and uproar among the parents. The request to buy meat products in Turkish supermarkets was argued by the teacher:
This ensures that all culinary preparations meet religious requirements and can be enjoyed by all pupils without hesitation.
The cookery teacher added that the meat requires a ‘HALAL certificate’. This went too far for the parents and they expressed their anger online. One woman asked on X:
‘Why is it always the locals who have to get used to something?
According to the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, which was the first to report on the matter, the Lower Austrian Education Directorate then called a halt. The school management immediately withdrew the content of the letter and sent a new letter to the parents. Such unauthorised parental information on the part of the teacher is absolutely not in line with the Lower Austrian Education Directorate and is rejected in the strongest possible terms, it said.
Für Kochunterricht: Schüler wurden gezwungen, „Halal-Fleisch“ zu kaufen – Unzensuriert