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RACISM

FPÖ MP expelled for anti-Semitic remarks

Update: After a firestorm of controversy over anti-Semitic remarks, Freedom Party MP Susanne Winter was expelled from the party on Monday evening, after failing to resign by a deadline.

FPÖ MP expelled for anti-Semitic remarks
Photo: FPÖ Campaign poster for Winter

This came despite her backpedalling after making remarks on social media which were interpreted as supporting anti-Semitic views.

The party gave the errant MP the chance to resign by 7pm instead of being expelled, but she did not do so.

“Given that up to this point in time no announcement has been made as to the resignation of Susanne Winter, she is hereby excluded from the Austrian Freedom Party with immediate effect. In addition, the FPÖ continues to call for her to give up her mandate (in parliament),” the party said in a statement.

Winter had replied to a post on Facebook from a person called Hans-Jörg Öhlmann, which said “Zionist Money-Jews are the global problem. Europe, and in particular Germany, are now getting what they deserve from Zionist Jews, particularly rich Zionist Jews in the USA, for the century-long persecution of Jews in Europe.”

“According to the Zionists, Europe, particularly Germany, should be cut off as economic competitors to the US.”

The post was in reference to an article in which Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán had criticised Jewish financier George Soros for meddling in the politics of the central European country.

Winter responded with “It is great. You are taking the words right out of my mouth. There are a lot of things I am not allowed to write. Therefore I’m even more pleased about courageous, independent people.”

On Sunday, the Jewish activist organization Anti Defamation League (ADL) was quick to condemn both posts as clearly anti-Semitic.  Shortly thereafter, Winter's post was deleted, but not before copies were made.

Winter made a statement to Der Standard newspaper on Sunday, saying that she was sorry for the post, which she described as “foolish.”

“I am not anti-Semitic, I have Jewish friends,” she told the newspaper.

Freedom Party General Secretary Herbert Kickl in a statement called Winter’s post “absolutely unacceptable.”

“The Freedom Party is no place for anti-Semitism,” he said, adding that Winter could be suspended from the party.

Anti-Islamic views

This is not the first time Winter has been criticized for her outspoken views.  In 2008, she was prosecuted for incitement, after making a strong anti-Muslim statement:

“In today’s system” the Prophet Muhammad would be considered a “child molester,” apparently referring to his marriage to a six-year-old child. She also said that it is time for Islam to be “thrown back where it came from, behind the Mediterranean.”

A court in her home town of Graz found her guilty of humiliating a religion.  She was fined ‎€24,000, and given a suspended prison term of three months.

She also proposed in a discussion with students that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than making “indecent advances” on girls.

Winter’s son Michael, a former youth leader in the Freedom Party, was convicted of the same crime.  He had suggested in a newsletter that Turkish Muslims were in the habit of committing bestiality.

Disgrace

Winter is “a disgrace to the Austrian Parliament,” Oskar German, president of the Austrian Jewish Community, told Der Standard.

ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt, who is meeting with European officials and the continent’s Jewish community leaders, said in a statement: “Once again, a member of Austria’s Freedom Party has been caught promoting offensive anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

“Susanne Winter’s response to the outrageous comments about Jews and money on her Facebook page shows that, when prompted, she would willingly endorse the worst kind of anti-Semitic stereotypes. These are the same grotesque notions that have bedeviled European Jews for hundreds of years.”

“Anti-Semitic stereotypes simply have no place in Austrian society. It is bad enough when they are whispered privately, but far worse when such hateful views emanate directly from a member of parliament who has a bully pulpit to express her ideas.”

For members

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.

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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