Religion and Islam in Italy

Hi everyone
It was good to meet up today and compare notes on how your discussions are going, I hope you find it useful. Well done Martina on your video project, I hope the others of you are now inspired to start working on yours.
We didn't have much time to talk about the topic of the readings this week, Religion and Politics. I did mention that it would be good for you to have some links to share with your peers about Islam in Italy - as (understandably) none of the readings on your list regarded Italy. I forgot that prof. Stefano Allievi at Padova University is one of the leading experts on Islam in Italy and Europe, here's a paper of his in English - though there are many more in Italian. Just last week he wrote in the local paper about teaching religion in schools and about the proposal of teaching Islam in Italian schools. Interestingly today on the news there was the story about the European Court's ruling on the crucifix in Italian schools (you can even send your opinion in a comment to the Guardian at the bottom of the article!
It's interesting that this issue has been discussed for a long time in Italy, and in the past, and also today in some of the Italian press, has been related to Muslims in Italy, as in this story in the BBC