Muslim Hate in Austria
Austrian
Interior Minister: All Those Held in Connection to Vienna Attack Have Migration
Background
Sputnik
International
November
4, 2020
Four
people were killed and more than a dozen injured, several of them critically,
in Monday's attack in the Austrian capital. The 20-year-old perpetrator was
shot and killed by police. Authorities have classified the attack as a
terrorist incident motivated by Islamist extremism.
All those
detained in connection with Monday's terror attack in the centre
of Vienna have a migrant background, and some are foreign nationals, Austrian
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer has said.
Speaking
at a press conference on Wednesday, Nehammer also
indicated that the arrested people were between the ages of 18 and 28, and are
under investigation for suspected involvement in a terrorist organisation. Police earlier reported that 14 people had
been detained in Austria after raids at 18 separate locations.
Nehammer also reported that Slovak officials had informed their Austrian
neighbours of ammunition possibly being bought by the
terror suspect inside Slovakia, but "something went wrong" and that
an "apparent miscommunication" took place between Austrian agencies
after the intelligence was received.
The minister blamed his predecessor Herbert Kickl for weakening the capabilities of Austria's domestic
intelligence service and causing it "lasting damage".
Nehammer also repeated that the attacker had fooled
Austria's deradicalisation programme
"perfectly", leading to his early release from custody on
terrorism-related charges late last year.
Vienna Attack
Four civilians were killed and some 22 injured
in Monday's attack, which began at around 8pm local time in Schwedenplatz,
Vienna. The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Kujtim
Fejzulai, was shot and killed by police special
forces about nine minutes into the attack. He was armed with an assault rifle,
a handgun, and a large knife, and posted photos of himself posing with the
weapons before going on his rampage. Police initially believed that at least
one other gunman was involved and had gone on the run, but have since said that
no other attackers appear to have been involved.
Fejzulai was born and raised in a small town outside Vienna, and had
dual citizenship for Austria and North Macedonia. Known to authorities for
being sympathetic to Islamist extremism for some time, he was arrested and
sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019 after attempting to travel
illegally to Syria to join Daesh (ISIS)*. He was let out of prison early in
December 2019, with authorities believing he had ben deradicalised
and concluding that he would be incapable of organising
terrorist acts.
Austrian court convicts 8 Iraqi men in
tourist’s gang rape
By George Jahn | AP
March 2, 2017
VIENNA — An Austrian court found eight Iraqi
nationals guilty on Thursday of gang-raping a German tourist on New Year’s Eve
more than a year ago and sentenced them to prison terms of between nine and 13
years.
Charges against a ninth suspect were
dismissed, said a court statement. The victim — a 28-year-old woman — was
awarded 25,000 euros (over $26,000) in damages.
Both sides were appealing the decision, the
statement said.
All nine Iraqi men, who ranged in age from 22
to 48, came to Austria as migrants between May and December 2015. Five
subsequently were given refugee status.
The prosecution argued that the eight men
convicted exploited the fact that the victim had been drinking heavily on Dec.
31, 2015 and was unable to defend herself.
Rape is punishable by a maximum 15-year
prison term in Austria. Explaining the verdict and sentencing, Judge Petra Poschalko said that only two of the defendants had helped
the court establish the facts and only one had confessed.
The court heard testimony that four of the
men took the woman to a Vienna apartment where they were joined by the others
and that all took turns raping her. When the alcohol started wearing off, she
found herself naked in a bed.
Rape is punishable by a maximum 15-year
prison term in Austria. Explaining the verdict and sentencing, Judge Petra Poschalko said that only two of the defendants had helped
the court establish the facts and only one had confessed.
Defense lawyer Andreas Reichenbach observed
that the gang rape was committed at around the same time as the high-profile
sexual assaults in Cologne by groups of migrants.
Reichenbach suggested the sentences imposed
Thursday served in part as an “additional message” for asylum-seekers.
“As we all know, asylum-seekers don’t have
the best image here in Austria,” he said. “I think that this surely played a certain
role, to make it clear to these people that when they come to Austria that such
behavior won’t be tolerated,” he said.
All but one of the defendants denied raping the woman. Some acknowledged having
sex with her, but argued it had been consensual.
Prosecutor Karina Fehringer
said that was impossible, describing the victim as being defenseless in an
“unconscious, shock-rigid” state.
Fehringer said the victim continues to suffer
post-traumatic effects from the assault and requires psychiatric treatment.
The defense argued that the victim might have
sent “false signals” that could have encouraged the men.
Noting that the woman was extremely
intoxicated, Fehringer was quoted by the Austria
Press Agency as asking:
“Should we stick warnings on bottles: ‘Excess
consumption could be interpreted as agreement to have sex?’”
Charges were dismissed against the
48-year-old defendant, who said he had been asleep during the assaults.
Migrants and refugees from other countries
expressed concern that the crime will make Austrians hostile toward all
newcomers.
“Eight people raping a woman — that’s honor-less! Such a thing doesn’t exist in
our religion,” Burhan Akbas, a migrant from Turkey,
said.
“When such people come here and screw up like
that, then everybody will think that Chechens, Afghans, all refugees from war
areas are all the same,” Mansur Salamou, an
asylum-seeker from Chechnya, said. “But it’s not like that. For example, the
majority of us — we also cause problems, commit crimes. But no rape! Only criminal
assaults and robberies.”
At least three killed in Austria after man drives into crowd before
'stabbing passers-by' in Graz
SUNDAY 21 JUNE
2015
The Independent
A seven-year-old boy is
reportedly among the three people killed in Austria by a man who ploughed his
car into crowds in the country’s second-largest city and then reportedly
started stabbing people.
A witness told the
Wiener Zeitung newspaper that dead bodies were left lying face down in the road
after the vehicle sped through streets near the the
historical Herrengasse in Graz.
The killing only
stopped when the driver parked his battered car outside a police station.
More than 30
pedestrians, including three children, were hurt at several locations during
the rampage and 10 victims were in hospital with serious injuries. One patient
was in a critical condition on Saturday afternoon.
The driver, identified
by police as a 26-year-old Austrian man of Bosnian heritage, has been arrested.
He works as a professional driver and is married with two children.
Police are not
currently investigating terrorism as a motive and the suspect is believed to be
suffering from mental illness.
Witnesses recounted how
the man drove his vehicle into crowds apparently at random, sending pedestrians
and cyclists crashing into the windscreen and rolling over the bonnet.
Dr Sea Rotmann, who was nearby, told Sky News: "I had a
friend who was there and she saw people flying through the air. She saw bodies
lying there, it was absolute chaos and mayhem.
"Apparently the
guy was attacking two elderly people with a knife and then attacking police
with a knife when he got out."
Police said the
stabbing happened outside a grocery shop, where a man was seriously injured and
a woman wounded less severely.
The incident started at
around 12.15pm local time (11.15am BST), sending screaming shoppers running
into shops for safety.
A statement from the
city council said: "At 12pm there was an appalling incident in the centre of Graz, which has caused major alarm and left the
city deeply shaken.
"A killer used his
car as a weapon and deliberately ran people down on a rampage. The perpetrator
is in custody."
A spokesperson said the
killing spree started in Zweiglgasse, where one
person died, and the driver continued through the city and over the Schönaugasse bridge to Herrengasse,
ploughing into a cafe seating area in the Hauptplatz
(main square).
A witness speaking to
the Wiener Zeitung compared the sound of chairs and tables being knocked over
by the speeding car to a "gunfight".
The mayor of Graz,
Siegfried Nagl, was riding his Vespa only metres away from the car as it screamed down Zweiglgasse and said he heard a "loud bang"
behind him.
He described seeing the
vehicle overtake a bus at "extremely high speed" and hit a man, who
died at the scene.
Mr Nagl said:
"At first I thought it was an accident and the driver would stop, but he
carried on purposefully and had deliberately killed the man."
The suspect was caught
in a nearby Schmiedgasse, where he stopped his car
outside a police station.
Josef Klamminger, the director of police, said the driver's
motive was not yet known but he appeared to be "psychotic" following
problems at home.
Herrengasse is Graz's main shopping street and
the adjoining squares are popular with tourists and diners making the most of
the summer with its outdoor cafes and bars.
This afternoon it was
lined with 50 ambulances and dozens of police cars as helicopters flew
overhead.
Hermann Schützenhöfer, the governor of Styria state, called the
driver a "deranged lone assassin".
"We are shocked
and dismayed...here is no explanation and no excuse for this attack," he
said at a press conference.
"We have much to
do to ensure cohesion in our community, which has clearly become difficult for
many people. I
appeal to everyone to seek unity in their lives and build bridges, not
walls."
The deputy governor,
Michael Schickhofer, called the tragedy
"incomprehensible" and said he could not express the city's pain.
Wilhelm Krautwaschl, the Bishop of Graz, said he was deeply
saddened by the attack.
"Shocked about
what happened, I pray for the victims and for those hurrying to help
them," he wrote on Facebook.
A memorial service for
the victims was due to be held at the Grazer Stadtpfarrkirche
at 6pm this afternoon.
The 2015 Austrian Grand
Prix is currently being held at the Spielberg Ring about 40 miles from Graz.
Muslim teacher
banned over anti-Semitic propoganda
Social Democrat (SPÖ)
Education Minister Claudia Schmied has banned a
Muslim man from teaching his religion at a Vienna secondary school after he
distributed anti-Semitic leaflets to pupils.
Schmied ordered the city school council today (Thurs)
to take such action against the man, who had been teaching at the Cooperative
Secondary School (KMS) on Brüßlgasse in Wien-Ottakring district. She said "delay would be
dangerous."
The reason for the ban is the man’s behaviour. He
reportedly distributed anti-Semitic leaflets to his students a few days ago.
The leaflets contained a list of allegedly "Jewish" firms from which,
the man told the students, they should not buy anything.
Teachers of religion are usually appointed and removed by their respective
religious associations, but Schmied said the law on
religion provided for the minister of education’s intervention in cases in
which such teachers violated their legal obligations.
Allowing the man to continue to teach, the minister said, would have caused
"serious damage to the interests of the school and the students."
Schmied’s intervention comes in the wake of
a study concluding Islamic instruction in Austria has to change to comply with
modern standards.
Mouhanad Khorchide is a
professor of the sociology of religion at the Islamic Religion and Pedagogical
Institute at Vienna University and the author of the new study, "Islamic
religious instruction between integration and a parallel society."
Khorchide’s study concludes Muslim teachers in
Austria have largely anti-democratic beliefs and one in five is
"fanatical".
Khorchide, himself a Muslim, said 22.6 per cent of
the 210 Muslim teachers he had surveyed had "fanatical attitudes" and
21.9 per cent rejected democracy as incompatible with Islam.
The older the teacher, Khorchide said, the more
likely he was to reject the principle of the rule of law.
According to Vienna weekly "Falter", the study claimed 8.5 per cent
of the Muslim teachers said it was understandable for violence to be used to
spread Islam, 28.4 per cent said there was a contradiction in being both a
Muslim and a European, and 44 per cent said they had to make their students
understand they were better than non-Muslims.
In addition, 29 per cent said it was impossible for Muslims to integrate in
Austria without losing their Muslim identity, and 55 per cent called Austrians
xenophobic.
On the other hand, 85.7 per cent said they did not believe Muslims had to keep
to themselves to avoid losing their Muslim identity.
The education Ministry and the Austrian Islamic Denomination recently agreed on
a package of changes providing for new contracts for Islamic instructors and
new lesson plans for the teaching of Islam in Austrian public schools.
Austrian Times
Homegrown Austrian terrorism - the end of a safe
era?
Earthtimes.org
September 13, 2007
Vienna - The arrest of three second-generation Muslim
immigrants Wednesday on terrorism charges shattered Austria's image of being a
safe haven from global terrorism. The three, two men in their 20s and one
woman, are accused of having produced an internet threat video, demanding
Austrian and German troops stop engagement in Afghanistan. The three are
believed to have links to al-Qaeda.
Austrians felt safe on their proverbial "island
of the blessed", when all over Europe concerns over homegrown terrorism
mounted. The country prided itself in its historically conciliatory approach
and good relations between the faiths.
But was this feeling of safety just an illusion, the
policy of cooperation a failure?
Austria's authorities did not regard the country as a
prime terrorism target, owing to its neutrality and opposition to the Iraq war.
However, in the long term view the number of militants was on the rise, experts
said.
Up to now Austria believed its approach of recognition
and inclusion of Muslims - despite regular attacks by the country's rightists -
would stave off extremism as experienced in other European nations.
The fact however that the suspects appear to be
radicalized second-generation immigrants shows parallels to arrests in Britain
or Germany.
Austria is home to approximately 339,000 muslims, 4.2 per cent of the population, the Islamic
Religious Authority said.
Austria was victim of several terrorist attacks in
the 1970s and 80s. The attack on the Vienna-based OPEC headquarters in 1975 was
masterminded by terrorist Carlos.
In 1979 a social democrat councillor
was murdered by the Abu Nidal terror group. Two were
killed in a PLO attack on Vienna airport in 1985.
It is widely believed that Austria's authorities allowed
the perpetrators to leave the country in exchange for security guarantees. They
inadvertently made Austria into a safe base for militant movements by this
tacit agreement, critics said.
How dangerous were these latest Austrian-based
alleged terrorists really? Are they al-Qaeda terrorists, or just copycat
amateurs, Austrians wonder. Authorities stressed the
suspects had "posed no danger" for Austria.
First media reports paint a more differentiated
picture: The 22- year-old main suspect headed the German outlet of the
"Global Islamist Media Front", a propaganda platform used by al-Qaeda
for recruitment. The arrest shut down Bin Laden's voice in Germany, one expert
said.
The suspect travelled to Iraq in 2003, and is
believed to have trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan,
Austrian media said. According to unconfirmed reports, he may have even been an
al- Qaeda sleeper.
Whatever the investigation unearths, Austrians will
have to part with the idea that their country can be exempt from terrorism and
further question the effectiveness of its policies to prevent radicalization.