Austria - 2012
Are there legal definitions of racist incident and racist violence?
- Code:
- RED23
- Key Area:
- Anti-racist Crime Legislation & Implementation
- Strand(s):
- Racism
| Short Answer |
No. There is no clear definition of racist incidents/violence. |
| Qualitative Info |
There is no clear definition of racist incidents/violence but there is some reference to racist incidents/violence in the Criminal Code: 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 belief (Weltanschauung), 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 |
| Groups affected/interested | Migrants, Refugees, Roma & Travelers, Muslims, Ethnic minorities, Religious minorities, Linguistic minorities, Majority, Asylum seekers, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Persons with disability |
| Type (R/D) | Extremism - organised Racist Violence, Anti-migrant/xenophobia, Anti-semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, Arabophobia, Anti-roma/zinghanophobia, Religious intolerance, Inter-ethnic, Intra-ethnic, Nationalism, Homophobia, On grounds of disability |
| Key socio-economic / Institutional Areas | Culture, Media, Internet, Political discourse -parties - orgs, Daily life |
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