Italys Interior Minister Defends Closure of Islamic School

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu declares that Italian schools fully respected Islam and had room for the children of immigrant Muslim families. Pisanu opposed the re-opening of an Islamic school in Milan which was recently closed, provoking protests from the students’ parents and criticism on the political left. Parents of children attending the Islamic school in Milan’s Via Quaranta have protested by holding lessons on the pavement outside. They say their children have the right to an education with an Islamic slant. Italy’s biggest association representing Muslims has not condemned the closure of the school, in which lessons were held in Arabic. The head of Rome’s Islamic cultural centre responded saying that the children ought to go to an Italian state school.