Austria - 2012
Is hate speech/racist-xenophobic discourse a wider, more 'mainstream', phenomenon in the political sphere?
- Code:
- RED35
- Key Area:
- Political Parties-organisations - Racist & Xenophobic Discourse
- Strand(s):
- Racism
| Short Answer |
Yes. |
| Qualitative Info |
ECRI repeatedly expressed its concerns on the exploitation of racism and xenophobia in Austrian politics. First of all it points out the advance of far-right parties, which are openly exploiting prejudices against minorities, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, Jews and Muslims. It especially refers to statements and speeches during election campaign, which stigmatise in particular migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and Muslims. These concerns are again mirrored in the election campaigns for the provincial elections in Styria and Vienna in autumn 2010. The FPÖ Styria opened its campaign with an “anti-minaret” video game on its website; the goal of the game was to shoot as many suddenly appearing minarets and muezzins as possible. The game was accessed 40,000 times after going online only within one day. It was severely criticised; the local Greens and the Islamic Faith Community reported the video game to the public prosecutor which immediately started investigations because of incitement and vilification of religious symbols. The game had to be removed from the website. At the same time, the Viennese FPÖ has continued its racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic campaigning of the previous years with slogans like “More courage for our Viennese blood – too much of the other is not good for anybody” or “We support free women – the social democrats the wearing of headscarves”. The Peoples’ Party points to the problem of the high number of pupils with non-German mother tongue in Viennese primary schools with the slogan “Let’s talk about education – in German, at best”. These slogans evidently contrast with ECRI’s demand to refrain from xenophobic behaviour. The ECRI Report recommends to the Austrian authorities to systematically condemn all forms of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in political discourse. It also suggests to adopt measures to combat the use of racially inflammatory or xenophobic discourse by political parties or their representatives. Sources: |
| Groups affected/interested | Migrants, Refugees, Muslims, Ethnic minorities, Religious minorities, Linguistic minorities, Asylum seekers |
| Type (R/D) | Extremism - organised Racist Violence, Anti-migrant/xenophobia, Anti-semitism, Islamophobia, Afrophobia, Arabophobia, Religious intolerance, Inter-ethnic, Nationalism |
| Key socio-economic / Institutional Areas | Political discourse -parties - orgs |
| External Url | |
| Situation(s) |
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