Indicator history

Sec. 283 (1) Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) [Criminal Code]  makes Verhetzung [incitement to hatred] a punishable offence: incitement to hatred is the public inducement or incitement to the commission of a hostile or violent act in a manner likely to endanger public order against a church, or religious community (existing in the state) or against a group on grounds of race, colour of skin, language, religion or Weltanschauung (belief-ideology), nationality, descent, national or ethnic group, gender, disability, age or sexual orientation or against member of such a group. This provision stipulates punishment of up to two years imprisonment. Sec. 283 (para. 2) also punishes public agitation against such a group or member of a group insulting or disparaging it in a manner violating or degrading human dignity.

Sec. 115 Criminal Code makes Beleidigung [defamation] a punishable offence,  i.e. to insult, mock, inure or threaten to injure third persons in public or in the presence of several others (i.e. in the presence of more than two persons who are different from the perpetrator and the victim and who can notice the incident). According to Sec. 117 (3) Criminal Code  such offences shall be prosecuted ex officio by the public prosecutor subject to the victim’s consent if they are committed by reason of the victim’s membership of one of the groups mentioned in Sec. 283 (1) Criminal Code (i.e. in the case of an insult or mockery (in the sense of Sec. 115) due to which a person is put down as ethnically, culturally or morally simply inferior on account of his or her membership to one of the groups mentioned in Sec. 283 (1) Criminal Code).  Such offences are punishable by a custodial sentence of up to three months or a pecuniary punishment of up to 180 daily rates.

Source: http://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10002296; http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/I/I_00674/fname_184138.pdf