The Belgian Islamic party Partij Islam is set to run candidates in 28 municipalities in the upcoming Belgian municipal elections, and have declared their intention to create an Islamic State in which women and men have to ride in separate buses.
The Partij Islam is likely hoping to do well in highly Muslim-populated areas like Molenbeek and Anderlecht where the party already has some representation, HLN reports.
Anderlecht municipal councillor Redouane Ahrouch, the treasurer of the party, told Belgian media: “Our goal is a one hundred percent Islamic state.”
Ahrouch, who works also as a bus driver in Anderlecht, said that many women have complained to him that men were trying to sexually harass and grab them. His solution to the problem, he said, is to separate public transport by sex so that women have their own buses.
The party also believes that any woman should be allowed to wear the Islamic headscarf anywhere they want and that all schools in the country should be forced to offer halal meat on their school menus. Last year the European Court of Human Rights upheld the Belgian ban on the wearing of the full-face veil in public.
Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Theo Francken slammed the party’s stances, saying: “Women do not have rights in their shariah world. And it starts with separate public transport. I am disgusted by this ISLAM party. This is spitting on Europe.”
The party is not the first Islamic party in Europe, as similar parties have sprung up across the continent in countries like the Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden.
Denk, a Muslim party centred largely around the Turkish community in the Netherlands, won several seats in last year’s national election, and the Islamic party Nida in Rotterdam attempted an alliance with left-wing parties this year until the coalition split because of a tweet from the party that compared Israel to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
In Sweden, meanwhile, the Jasin party was denied registration by the country’s electoral commission after revelations emerged that it had been taken over by radical Islamic extremists.