Nr. 1/2021 RAFFAELLO VILLANI Introduction
Nr. 1-2022ANDREA BENZO Memory of Giovanni Battista Varnier
ABSTRACT
This essay examines, from a legal point of view, the long and complex story relating to the request to build the mosque in Pisa. Indeed, the purchase in 2013 of an area intended for “religious services for worship” by the Islamic Cultural Association of Pisa has triggered a series of reactions aimed at preventing the construction of the Islamic place of worship. In particular, the consultative referendums promoted by a citizens’ committee and the urban variants approved by the municipal administration, have effectively blocked the construction of the mosque, showing a clear discriminatory intent toward the Islamic religion. However, the judgement of the Administrative Court for Tuscany pronounced on May 13, 2020, seems to open a new phase of this troubled path since, in accepting the appeal presented by the Islamic association against the Municipality of Pisa, it cancels all the acts that had made impossible the construction of the mosque.
KEYWORDS
Mosque in Pisa, freedom of worship, religious buildings and town planning regulations