Excerpt:
Muslim leaders from the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia came to Prague on Tuesday to share their experiences and to discuss the challenges faced by their communities. The numbers of the Muslim populations in their countries vary significantly, as do their historic backgrounds. But the debate showed that some challenges are shared by Muslims across the region: islamophobia, media bias, and severe legislative restrictions.
The Muslim presence in Central Europe goes back centuries but today's Muslim communities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary only began to form in the 1970s and 80s, with the influx of students from the Middle East and North Africa.
The sizes of the present-day Muslim communities in each of the Visegrad Group countries range from around 35,000 in Poland to less than 5,000 in Slovakia. This is one of the reasons why legislation makes it difficult for Muslim organizations to register as religious communities and acquire the same rights as much more populous religious groups.