88 Parliamentarian Questions concerning Nazis and Rightist Extremism in Austria

In July 2010 Karl Oellinger, Green MP in Aus­tria, addressed 88 par­lia­men­tar­i­an ques­tions con­cern­ing nazi- and right­ist extrem­ism activ­i­ties in Aus­tria to the Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or, Maria Fek­ter. The ques­tions refer to the web­site www.alpen-donau.info, which ist online since April 2009 and with­in a year turned out to be a major project aim­ing to coor­di­nate and aggra­vate activ­i­ties of right­ist extrem­ists beyond par­tic­u­lar groups. Although Aus­tri­an law was vio­lat­ed on the web­site repeat­ed­ly, secu­ri­ty forces have not tak­en effi­cient mea­sures to stop the threat. In reply to a for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an ques­tion con­cern­ing the web­site, Aus­tri­an Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or, Maria Fek­ter, declared to be bound by the fact, that the web­site tech­ni­cal­ly is locat­ed on a serv­er in the USA.

This, of course, is an insuf­fi­cient excuse for the inac­tiv­i­ty of the Aus­tri­an secu­ri­ty forces, as a num­ber of activists or peo­ple in con­tact with activists of the web­site is already detect­ed, but yet were not ques­tioned by the police. Point­ing on alleged lib­er­al laws in the USA fur­ther is inap­pro­pri­ate, as the activists of the nazi-web­site not only vio­late the Aus­tri­an Nazi Pro­hi­bi­tion Act of 1947 (which in fact couldn’t be pros­e­cut­ed in the USA), but also sev­er­al oth­er laws, of which many are much more effec­tive in US-leg­is­la­tion and juris­dic­tion than in Aus­tria (espe­cial­ly con­cernig hate­crimes and form­ing of ter­ror­ist groups).

The 88 par­lia­men­tar­i­an ques­tions of the Green Par­ty in Aus­tri­an Par­lia­ment aim to acti­vate Aus­tri­an secu­ri­ty forces as well as to gain sup­port in the USA. In the fol­low­ing we briefly describe the back­ground of the par­lia­men­tar­i­an ques­tions in an abstract.

The web­site declares to be a joint activ­i­ty of sev­er­al groups of activists spread over Aus­tria fight­ing the „hat­ed“ Repub­lic of Aus­tria as “an instru­ment of geno­cide, that exhausts the cor­pus of the peo­ple (in Ger­man the web­site uses the word “Volk­skör­p­er”, which is a spe­cif­ic Nazi-Code), robs its bound­aries, injects alien tox­i­cs and detains the last exist­ing sane ele­ments.“ (Feb. 25th, 2010)

Mem­bers of these groups have been vio­lat­ing law for sev­er­al times, espe­cial­ly by agi­ta­tion of hatred, dam­age of prop­er­ty or vio­la­tion of the Aus­tri­an Nazi Pro­hi­bi­tion Act of 1947. www.alpen-donau.info def­i­nite­ly approves acts of law vio­la­tion, as it calls for „cre­ative“ and „direct action“: „Don’t get caught and be cre­ative. Hate towards the sys­tem must be act­ed out, or we could love the sys­tem as well.“ (Feb. 10th, 2010)

The web­site threat­ens crit­ics espe­cial­ly by pub­lish­ing pic­tures, names and address­es in com­bi­na­tion with fur­ther­go­ing threats and the announce­ment of phys­i­cal attacks. The inter­net-forum aligned with the web­site (alin­fo­do) doesn’t shy explic­it com­mit­ment: „The day of revenge will come.“ A user with the alias „Dr. Brandt“ (refer­ring at the per­son­al physi­cian of Adolf Hitler) declares: „Violance is no solu­tion – the cow­ards and the wimps always say. Of course vio­lence solves all prob­lems and is an inter­na­tion­al lan­guage every­body can under­stand.“ Accord­ing to Dr. Brandt, debates with polit­i­cal ene­mies, espe­cial­ly with jews, are detestable. „You don’t con­verse with bugs, lous­es or fleas. You just try to elim­i­nate them.“ Severe­ly intim­i­dat­ing is the fact, that the web­site as well as the forum praise paramil­tary groups and vio­lence in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries (as for instance Hun­gary, Czechia,…) and there­by prop­a­gate an ide­al of activists attack­ing the vic­tims of their hatred-pro­pa­gan­da. Not supris­ing­ly, the num­ber and the inten­si­ty of nazi-attacks on peo­ple of col­or and antifas­cists in Aus­tria has dou­bled with­in the last years, includig two peo­ple killed and a num­ber injured in 2009 and at least two case of severe arson in hos­tels in 2010.

The activists respon­si­ble for the web­site and the forum not only prop­a­gate vio­lence and hatred, they also preach for coop­er­a­tion with legal right-wing groups and par­ties. In sev­er­al notes they call for coop­er­a­tion with the Aus­tri­an Free­dom Par­ty (which has sev­er­al MPs in Aus­tria) or oth­er extreme right-wing organ­i­sa­tions. Sev­er­al users of the forum declare to be mem­bers of the Free­dom Par­ty and repeat­ed­ly inter­nal papers and infor­ma­tions of the Free­dom Par­ty were pub­lished on the web­site. On the oth­er hand, Free­dom-Par­ty-activists are pro­mot­ing the web­site in their face­book-accounts or in sim­i­lar ways.

www.alpen-donau.ifo tech­ni­cal­ly is sit­ed on a serv­er in the USA and there­fore doesn’t fear Aus­tri­an pros­e­cu­tion, so the peo­ple in charge of the site dis­play explic­it terms and admit their ties to the nazi-ide­ol­o­gy. They also direct­ly offend and ver­bal­ly attack Aus­tri­an politi­cians, jour­nal­ists, polit­i­cal activists and artists as well as women in offi­cial posi­tions, mem­bers of eth­nic minori­ties, homo­sex­u­als or dis­abled peo­ple (for instance by pub­lish­ing their adress request­ing to „vis­it“ them or to „get in con­tact“), con­stant­ly in com­bi­na­tion with terms like “the day of revenge will come” or refer­ring to tor­ture and mur­der per­formed by the nazi-regime or oth­er inhu­man regimes.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact: [email protected]