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Neo-Nazi Dane jailed for racist attack

A Danish citizen well-known in the Austrian neo-Nazi environment was behind a racially-motivated pepper spray attack on an Afghan family.

Published: 22 October 2015 21:05 CEST
Neo-Nazi Dane jailed for racist attack
The attack occurred at a train station south of Vienna. Photo: Colourbox

A 34-year-old Danish man has been jailed in Austria for an assault on an Afghan family, Danish news site Dagens.dk reported.

The attack took place at a train station in the city of Payerbach, located south of Vienna. Upon arrest at the Dane's home, local police recovered several illegal items related to Nazism.

In an incident that occurred last week, the Danish man left the train and saw the family at the station and proceeded to assault them using pepper spray.

One eye witness, Norbert Mang, a volunteer helping asylum seekers, told dagens.dk that the attack was clearly deliberate.

“A pale man with a small moustache stepped off the train. I greeted him kindly whilst helping the Afghan family off the train, but he did not answer me. Instead he went directly toward the father in the family and pepper sprayed him in the face,” he said.  

Mang said that he himself was hit by the pepper spray.

“It really made my eyes hurt, and we fell to the ground while the children screamed,” he told Dagens.dk.

The Austrian Public Prosecutor has stated that the Danish neo-Nazi is pleading not guilty to charges of assault.

The Danish man moved to Austria in 2010 and became well known within the neo-Nazi community in Vienna, according to the report.  

See also: Danish neo-Nazi jailed in Austria for Islam insults

He had previously studied history and chemistry at University in Austria, but was sentenced in January this year to two years in custody due to glorifying Nazi ideology. In one Facebook post he stated “it’s time to fight on behalf of the Nazis”. His Facebook account also featured several other racist and Islamophobic statements.

Neo-Nazi attacks have increased within northern Europe with the influx of refugees, and many experts are becoming concerned with the level of organization, according to German site Der Spiegel.

An asylum centre in eastern Jutland that was recently vandalized with a swastika and a “warning” to residents told public broadcaster DR that he believes the attack was likely inspired by recent events in Germany, where a series of asylum centres have been targeted by arson. The same is also currently happening in Sweden, where more than a dozen fires at housing for refugees have been reported this year.

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RACISM

How widespread is racism in Austria?

The number of racist incidents in Austria decreased last year compared to the previous year, a new study has found. But experts say many cases go unreported.

Published: 21 March 2024 16:37 CET
Updated: 27 March 2024 14:27 CET
How widespread is racism in Austria?

At first glance, the statistics look encouraging. Just over 1,300 incidents with a racist motive were reported to the Austrian non-government organisation ZARA last year – a drop from just under 1,500 reported the previous year and half as many as 2020 when a record 3,000 racist incidents were reported. 

The spike in incidents from 2020 is thought to be connected to people spending more time online in the first pandemic year and due to the issue being in the public eye as part of the Black Lives Matter movement sparked after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the US. 

However, Rita Isiba, who heads up ZARA, warned that many cases go undetected because some victims fear the wider implications of reporting offences. 

During the presentation on Wednesday of the new report into racism and discrimination, Isiba said racism is part of everyday life in Austria for people of colour and is not an individual problem, but a social one. 

The report shows “how deeply rooted racism still is in many areas of life in Austria”, Isiba said.

Particularly in the education system, the healthcare system, when in contact with the police and the workplace, there is clear racism and discrimination, the report found. 

ZARA provided 1,708 counselling appointments to victims when racism was reported, and took legal measures or other interventions 702 times.

READ ALSO: Muslims and black people discriminated against in Austria, report reveals

Where is racism happening in Austria?

Of the 1,302 reports documented by ZARA in 2023, 58 percent concerned racist incidents online. But researchers pointed out that there can be a blurry line between online incidents and in-person incidents. 

Head of the counselling centres, Fiorentina Azizi-Hacker mentioned one example of a black woman contacting ZARA because she had been subjected to racist and sexist insults as well as threats by her online dating contact.

After she said she was not interested in meeting up again after the first date, he bombarded her with messages in which he threatened to sexually assault her daughter, among other things.

The office attributed 15.9 percent of cases to the “public sphere”, 11 percent to incidents involving “goods and services”, 8.4 percent to state authorities and institutions, 4.5 percent to the police, 1.6 percent to politics and the media and 0.4 percent to the world of work. Formal complaints were only lodged in four out of 58 cases of alleged racist police violence.

It comes after a report released by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found Austria and Germany were among the worst EU countries for racism.

A total of 76 percent of respondents in Germany and 72 percent in Austria reported experiencing discrimination in the past five years due to their skin colour, origin, or religion.

READ ALSO: Austria ranks among ‘worst’ EU countries for racism

Language ‘bans’ at school

The anti-discrimination organisation ZARA slammed the system around Austria’s so-called German support classes or Deutschförderklassen.

Teacher Ali Dönmez said the issue is that pupils are segregated based on their language skills and the MIKA-D test required for categorisation places too much importance on grammar.

Dönmez pointed out that the way Austrian schools deal with multilingualism is generally a problem. He described several cases where children and young people were forbidden to speak Turkish or Arabic or were even penalised for doing so.

But younger people are often afraid to report the problems in case teachers are informed. 

“There is a legitimate concern that the situation will get worse if they report it,” said Dönmez.

Austrian government shelves racism action plan 

ZARA’s Rita Isiba issued fresh calls for the Austrian government to kick start its National Action Plan against Racism (NAP).

However, it has emerged that the coalition government – made up of the Greens and Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) has shelved it.

When Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) was asked about the NAP, he said the government “won’t get round to it” before the election later this year, reported the Kurier. 

According to Austrian broadcaster ORF, Rauch said the responsibility for the plan lay with Integration and Women’s Affairs Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP).

“We would like to see much more speed in the creation and coordination of this plan,” said Rauch, criticising his coalition partners. The Green ministries had “done their homework and have already taken important measures in their areas of responsibility”, said Rauch. 

Isiba said their agency would “continue to work to bring Austria closer to a society that is critical of racism”, when asked about the cancelled plan. “If we don’t have the support of politicians, we at least have the support of private individuals and companies.”

READ ALSO: Austrian study shows discrimination against foreigners in the housing market

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