Vienna police escalate & restrict freedom of assembly
Vienna (OTS) – On Thursday 23.02. an anti-fascist stroll through Vienna’s Josefstadt took place as a demonstration registered by the ÖH Uni Wien, in which around 500 people took part.
The demonstration was stopped by the police in Buchfeldgasse on flimsy grounds and asked to refrain from burning pyrotechnic objects. Only through the prudent action of the demo management of the ÖH Uni Wien, together with the stewards, could the police be dissuaded from holding up the demonstration several hundred meters after the march in front of the University of Vienna at the Schottentor. The demonstration then passed the Gothia fraternity without further incident.“Burschenschaft are racist and sexist male associations. Demonstrations against them are a necessity. While Nazis write terror lists and the police sleep, their anti-fascism is apparently a thorn in the side.”
Toma Khandour (VSStÖ) from the chair team of the ÖH Uni Wien is outraged.
Arriving at Fuhrmannsgasse, the demonstration was stopped again after further pyrotechnical objects had been set off. Although the demo leaders again acted together with the stewards and through a loudspeaker van on the demonstration, whereupon the participants also refrained from further burning pyrotechnic objects, the Vienna police were willing from that moment on to the situation as in previous protests against to escalate the ‘Akademikerball’ unnecessarily.
The demonstration was encircled in the Fuhrmannsgasse in a confined space for over an hour and harassed for the entire time.
The police placed the demonstration under general suspicion and first wanted to search the entire demonstration to secure pyrotechnic objects. Only through the prudent action of the demonstration management could this escalating measure be averted and an agreement was reached with the demonstrators to put pyrotechnic objects on the ground in order to be able to continue the demonstration.“The right to demonstrate for left-wing and anti-fascist demonstrations is being restricted more and more in Austria. The police prefer to protect right-wing extremists and harass left-wingers, that’s a scandal!”
Fridolin Tagwerker (KSV-LiLi) from the chair team of the Öh Uni Vienna is concerned.
The police then wanted to move the demonstration to one side of the narrow alley, while at the same time a police task force moved through the demonstration in a single file on this side. Pressured from both sides, it was not the surrounded and threatened demonstrators who escalated, but the police task force with a completely excessive use of pepper spray and batons, in which several people were injured, including officers themselves, who were victims of their own colleagues.
After all attempts by the Vienna police to break up the demonstration by force on flimsy grounds had failed, the demonstration was broken up by the police without further discussion with stewards or the leaders of the meeting.
All participants then left the meeting place without further incident.
On the eve of the Academic Ball, the Vienna police actively prevented an anti-fascist protest against right-wing extremism and the continuation of the demonstration, which should have gone to the location of the synagogue at Neudeggergasse 12 that was destroyed during the November pogroms.
While on January 6th, 2023 right-wing extremist demonstrators were allowed to smoke the entire parliament completely unmolested by a veritable sea of pyrotechnics, the police are cracking down on anti-fascists.“The police’s approach was disproportionate and dangerous. Apparently, they don’t want to act too harshly against neo-Nazis during right-wing extremist corona demonstrations, while left-wingers are always looking for reasons for escalation. That shouldn’t come as a surprise in a post-Nazi country like Austria, but it shouldn’t have to but be an alarm signal. Anti-fascist demonstrations will never be banned and harassed!”
concludes Simon Neuhold from the department for anti-fascist social criticism at the ÖH University of Vienna & leader of the rally during the anti-fascist stroll through the booths.
Questions & contact:
Simon Neuhold
+43 [0] 660 3565842
simon.neuhold@oeh.univie.ac.at
