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From: Rosa Antifa Wien <raw@swi.priv.at> Welcome to the first number of evil:austria! This is our new monthly newsletter, that will inform about the actual situation in Austria and the consequences of the new government. We have decided to work out this newsletter, because we realized that the knowledge about the real situation in Austria, especially abroad, is very limited. The government has reached its target, that with the discussion about the "sanctions" of the European Union the daily madness in this country has vanished from the agenda of the international public. We want to avoid that it comes to a "normalization" of the right/right-extreme Austrian government. We also do this for egoistic reasons, because the international monitoring prevents that things are getting even worse at least for the moment. Therefore, it is very important to spread this newsletter as far as possible, so that as many people as possible are informed about the situation in Austria. Thus: distribute, distribute, distribute! Feel free to use this material for other publications, but please, send us a mail if you do so. In addition, we try to send this newsletter in various languages, and we would appreciate it if some people could help us with the translations. If you want to support this project and know other languages than German, English or Spanish, please let us know! So far, this is long enough for an introduction. Just one more thing: please send critics and remarks to: raw@swi.priv.at Enjoy the newsletter! ;begin contents <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ************************************ - 1 - Haider's ideas of "sanctions" ************************************ - 2 - "Hump? Dump? Lump?" *********************************************************** - 3 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (1) *********************************************************** - 4 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (2) *********************************************************** - 5 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (3) *********************************************************** - 6 - Law and Order ******************************* - 7 - Over and out for the SEK? ******************************* - 8 - Justice in Austria (1) **************************** - 9 - Justice in Austria (2) **************************************************************** - 10 - About handcuffs and children (with two different results) **************************************************************** - 11 - Demolition of critical media (1) *************************************** - 12 - Demolition of critical media (2) *************************************** - 13 - Demolition of critical media (3) **************************************** - 14 - No freedom of opinion in Austria! ************************************************ - 15 - Creative methods of money acquisition (1) ************************************************ - 16 - Creative methods of money acquisition (2) ************************************************ - 17 - Creative methods of money acquisition (3) ************************************************ - 18 - Bank robber survives official act ******************************************* - 19 - The new government stimulates baking ******************************************* ;end contents <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< *********************************** - 1 - Haider's ideas of "sanctions" *********************************** During the opening ceremony of an official building in Carinthia, Joerg Haider demanded the prosecution of politicians, who "are acting against Austria". In particular, he aimed at the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Gusenbauer, and the EU-Parliamentarian Voggenhuber a member of the Green Party. Haider refers to paragraph 248 of the Austrian law: "(1) Persons who spitefully insult or bring to contempt the Republic of Austria or one of its Federal States in a way, that the act becomes known to the broader public, will be punished by imprisonment for up to 1 year". Apart from the fact that this paragraph is scandalous, it's horrible to use it against the opposition. In our opinion (and we are not the only ones), just the demand to imprison opposition leaders shows the wish for an authoritarian regime and it shows once more, what Joerg Haider is. Such paragraphs were also used against the opposition under Mussolini and Franco. Joerg Haider is not alone with such ideas! Consider the statements of other party members: the Secretary of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe), Theresia Zierler, meant this idea is "worth to think about". For the Austrian Freedom Party's Minister of Justice, (and Haider's lawyer and right students' association companion) Dieter Boehmdorfer, it is "worth to pursue" this idea. The Federal Chancellor of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP), Wolfgang Schuessel, speaks about a "summer topic". Referring to the freedom of opinion, from Schuessel's point of view Haider can pursue such ideas. ************************* - 2 - "Hump? Dump? Lump?" ************************* At the party convention of the Viennese section of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe), Hilmar Kabas was elected as chairman of this section (Kabas is the person, who posted "stop the foreign infiltration" in Vienna during the last election campaign and therefore a cake was smashed into his face a while ago). When a party member gave him another cake to comfort him (this time not into his face), Kabas directed some words to the Austrian president Thomas Klestil (Klestil rejected Kabas as Minister of Defence because of his "foreign infiltration" adds). Kabas said, that Klestil has behaved himself like a riff-raff (in German: "Lump"). It was clear, that some reporters wanted to know, what Kabas meant. But Kabas finally lost his loose screw and said: "Regarding Klestil I've never said something like this ("Lump" = riff-raff ), maybe it was something like "Hump" (?), or "Dump" (??), I don't remember exactly." (Annotation: "Hump" and "Dump" do not exist in German; since this time linguists try to find out, what it could mean). We don't know it neither, the only thing we and other people were reminded of, was Humpty-Dumpty. The Department of Public Prosecution investigated, but Klestil refused the prosecution and said: "this statement is judging itself". Good luck to Kabas, he got away just like a stupid boy. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe), disturbed by fake-homepages like www.fpo.at, reacted very fast this time and reserved the domains www.dump.at and www.lump.at. But www.hump.at was reserved by somebody else. It is worth looking at, from time to time. *********************************************************** - 3 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (1) *********************************************************** In the course of "Operation Spring" a large-scale racist-motivated "drug raid" where more than 100 black people were arrested, also a young black man who claims to be a minor was seized. Now he is supposed to be condemned because of drug-dealing but the question is, whether the juvenile court is responsible for him or not. Therefore a medical expert named Johann Szilvassy was consulted, who was supposed to evaluate the age of the young person. He did his job by measuring the width of the nose, the size of the testicles, the density of the pubic hair, the length of the head and last but not least the width of the mouth of the young man! This surveyor of human beings is well known: he was the co-creator of the "Hall of Races" in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, which was closed 4 years ago, and he writes articles for the far right magazine "Aula". He "stated", that the accused young black man is between 22 and 25 years old which means the double degree of punishment. In his court statement, he added: "If the immigration continues, the fair-haired people will disappear within the next generations. The pigmentation will be darker". The defender asked if the expert opinion was "influenced ideologically" and protested against the "evidence". After that, the senior public prosecutor, Eisenmenger, supported Szilvassy, so he was allowed to continue (meanwhile he retired voluntarily). Investigations showed - surprise, surprise! - that the senior public prosecutor feels comfortable in right-extreme groups: he is a member of the sabre fencing students´ association "Arminia". In 1997 he sent a "corps list" to Arminia-members concerning persons who "should always be kept in honorable remembrance", among them also Nazi war criminals. In 1980 he was engaged in a presidential election committee supporting Norbert Burger, the leader of the right-extreme NDP (National Democratic Party). For the state police the past of Eisenmenger doesn't seem to be a problem. Eisenmenger says that before he was appointed as senior public prosecutor he was "checked" by the state police. *********************************************************** - 4 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (2) *********************************************************** June 4, 2000: In his inaugural speech the new chairman of the “Section Lower Austria" of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe), Ernst Windholz, shared “his ideas" with us. He referred to long-term functionaries, and honored them with the sentence "our honor means faith", which was the slogan of the "Waffen-SS" (armed corps of Hitler's SS). Afterwards he said in an interview, that he didn't know the context, as he "has nothing to do with the time between 1938 and 1945". *********************************************************** - 5 - The Austrian way of coming to terms with the past (3) *********************************************************** The Austrian Freedom Party's member of the Senate of the Parliament, John Gudenus, gave an interview to the news magazine "Profil", in which he made clear how much the new government is interested in coming to terms with the Austrian crimes during the Holocaust. Regarding the compensations for people who were condemned to forced labor during the Nazi regime, he said: "The compensations are necessary for maintaining economical relationships, especially with the USA. Nothing else is meant. These compensations are nothing else than protective money that we have to pay. We are in a situation where we have to knuckle under the great powers. But the Austrian people have nothing to do with the events that happened in those days". In addition, to that he said about Ed Fagan, a lawyer of NS-terror victims, : "(...) he doesn't help to develop sympathies for people like him". (Annotation: Ed Fagan is a Jew.) ******************* - 6 - Law and Order ******************* In the night of May 3, the 26 year old Richard W. from Sierra Leone was found dead in a cell of a youth penal institution in Vienna. Richard W. was arrested on May 1 (exactly one year after Marcus Omofuma was killed during his deportation by the Austrian police) and according to eye-wittnesses he was beaten up by the police. The government imposed a news-stop. The official autopsy-report states that Richard W. died of drugs, but the report is full of contradictions. In the next morning, just a few hours after the death of Richard W., the 40-year-old Lubinor B. from Slovakia was found dead, in a cell of a police commissionar department in Vienna. This was kept secret for more than a week. According to the temporary autopsy-report, the man had a high concentration of Marihuana in his urine, they also mentioned traces of Methadone and antidepressants. On May 19, 2000 a putative marihuana-dealer was shot by the police. Imre B. was unarmed and they did not find any drugs in his car, in which he was shot. The police stated that this shot was not by intention. At their assumption of office, the FPOe-OeVP government promised a sharper drug policy and they are realising it now. Summary: 3 dead men in 3 weeks, following the FPOe pre-election slogan "No mercy for drug-dealers". It doesn't matter if they were dealers or not. Because of these 3 dead men about 100 people tried to demonstrate against police violence, on May 20 in Vienna. From the beginning the police strategy was escalation. They had helmets, shields, and truncheons, helicopters were observating the demonstration... The officer on duty said: "Today there will be a riot." After the WEGA (Viennese special police squad with a lot of FPOe voters among them) arrived, they started to beat up the protesters. Twenty-four people were isolated, surrounding police men were beating them up for several hours. The spectating crowd was pushed away from the police lines and was also knocked up without any reason! At least 4 people were injured. Ambulances arrived already before the police riot started, and around the ambulances the blood of the hurt demonstraters could be seen. After 3.5 hours nearly all of the 24 people from the surrounded group were allowed to leave. One person was brought to prison for some hours. Before this police attack there was an article in the most read Austrian newspaper - "Neue Kronenzeitung" (in this newspaper there are often articles about "Nigerian drug-dealers" and left-winged people). In this article one could read there would be riots from "extremely violent anarchists" at a mass demonstration on 20th of May (but no demonstration was announced for this day), which authorized the massive police attacks in advance. The situation in Austria becomes tougher and great waves of repression against left wing people especially through articles from "Neue Kronenzeitung", become more and more reality. For coloured people and/or people with the "wrong" passport, the situation in Austria is dangerous and life-threatening since a long time! Sad postscript: On May 17, a 5-year-old refugee from Afghanistan died. "Real Austrians", a doctor, a hotel-manager, the ambulance... continously refused any help until the child died. This incident became public one week later. ******************************* - 7 - Over and out for the SEK? ******************************* According to a report in the weekly Austrian news magazine "Profil" a "special group for criminal investigation department" (SEK) will be dissolved after a 6-month test period. "Profil" wrote, that they got this information from inner police circles. The short history of SEK has quite a record: At the beginning of March 2000, masked policemen of the SEK arrested three people during the "Opernball"-demonstration. At the first attempted arrest, the policemen wanted to pull a young woman into a car. At the second hit, two persons were pulled out of a cab by two men who could not be identified as policemen and showed their guns instead of their identification badges. The two demonstraters were arrested in front of the very confused uniformed policemen. The whole situation was filmed and was shown at a press conference of the Austrian Green Party. Two days later the refugee and foreigner advice-office of the Green Party was target of a police offence. One of the founders of the SEK is working at the police-station that made the move. Both cases are examples for the authoritarian character, which is shown by police against oppositional groups. On May 19, a member of the SEK shot an unarmed Yugoslavian who was said to be a drug dealer - afterwards. The SEK man stated that the gun went off when the door of the victim´s car was opened. Even if this dubious version of the story is true, why would the policeman - against all police regulations - rest his finger on the safety-lock released trigger? After all, a gun that takes a power of 2.5 kilograms to be fired will not go off by accident. The fact that members of the SEK are violent and racist Rambos is supported by the circumstance that some of them were dismissed from the WEGA because of their brutal behaviour. (Notice: The WEGA - a special police force - is known for their ruthlessness). The Chief of the SEK, lieutenant Rabensteiner, is suspected of having committed a racist assault himself. The SEK, entrusted with observation and intervention, is formed by members who work - as they say voluntarily, free of charge and any time they are needed. This self-description is quite alarming, and so far their activities prove it. **************************** - 8 - Justice in Austria (1) **************************** Justice in Austria is racist - old story! Nearly all black people arrested during "Operation Spring" have been found guilty and were sentenced to four to ten years. They were convicted before their trials even came to court. The case of Michel K. is the best example for justice in Austria: Michel K. was sentenced to four years without any evidence against him, just upon the statement of a witness who was originally a suspect and arrived masked in court. Now it's clear: Police can safe time and energy simply by arresting people who easily change their mind or take undercover agents into custody during the same operation, whereas otherwise they have troubles digging up evidence. **************************** - 9 - Justice in Austria (2) **************************** In July 1999, a man was verbally and physically violated and arrested by six policemen in St. Poelten. He was found guilty of an attempt to resist against the executive power. This man is black. He will probably be deported. **************************************************************** - 10 - About handcuffs and children (with two different results) **************************************************************** An interesting incident on May 17, 1999: A 33 year old mother with two children, all on bikes, was accused of crossing a street at a red traffic light. She was stopped by the police and after a long discussion the woman was handcuffed and arrested. Her children, six and ten years of age, were not allowed to accompany her - so the policeman just left them on the street. The policeman was found guilty of abusing his power by the Viennese law court and was fined to pay ATS 40.000, however, the independent Senate for Surveillance (UVS) declared the legitimacy of his action. The UVS was constituted due to international pressure and to rule independently in cases against the police. Though, this institution never proved to be independent so far. No wonder, considering the fact that quite a lot of the judges working for the UVS are former police lawyers, who will return to their original profession after their time at the UVS. *************************************** - 11 - Demolition of critical media (1) *************************************** Crtical media are almost non-existing in Austria. Since the Free Radio stations have supported the protest against the government, they are a thorn in the "Blue-Black"(FPOe-OeVP) side and so subventions are cut down. The money is gone - and there is no freedom of speech in this country... *************************************** - 12 - Demolition of critical media (2) *************************************** The right-wing opinion forming daily newspaper "Neue Kronenzeitung" is irritated, by the fact that independent people with their own video cameras are documenting abuses of police and started a virulent campaign against these persons. Again and again video material is spread that shows the scandalous methods of the police (e.g. operations by the SEK - "Special Operation Command"). This is the only way to make things public, because according to eyewitnesses, the ORF (state-controlled Austrian Broadcasting) is usually exercising self-censorship and stops filming as soon as the police starts to punch. We´ll see when people with video cameras will violently be hindered next time they try to document police methods. Anyhow, "Neue Kronenzeitung" is paving the way. *************************************** - 13 - Demolition of critical media (3) *************************************** The EU Ministers of Justice and of the Interior want to realize the surveillance of the whole internet, both surfing and mailing. Due to the resistence of some countries these laws could not pass. Probably, we do not have to mention that the Austrian "law and order" politicians are not against such laws. With the favorite phrase "erweiterte Gefahrenforschung" (something like "extended danger research", which gives police more power) the government can spy marvelously on the resistence movement against the black-blue government. **************************************** - 14 - No freedom of opinion in Austria! **************************************** The political scientist Anton Pelinka was convicted of "vile gossip" against the former chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) Joerg Haider. The reason for the sentence is a statement on 1st of May 1999 for the Italian Broadcasting Company RAI: "During his whole career Haider again and again made statements that play down the National Socialism. Once he called extermination camps "Straflager" ("Straflager" in German is usually the term for camps where people are obligated to forced labor, which has nothing to do with mass extermination). All together Haider is responsible for making certain national-socialist principals and statements fit for good society." The conviction against Anton Pelinka shows the lack of freedom of opinion in Austria, and that all people critizising Haider must be afraid to open their mouths. A lively detail: The private complaint against Pelinka was presented by Haider's lawyer, Dieter Boehmdorfer, who meanwhile is the so called "independent" Minister of Justice of Austria! ************************************************ - 15 - Creative methods of money acquisition (1) ************************************************ When the governor of Carinthia, Joerg Haider, goes on a trip interesting things happen. However, he does not want everything to become public. So it was just an accident that we know that Haider met the Libyen "Revolution Leader" Muammar al-Gaddafi during his journey in May. First this journey was denied, later it was presented as a "private trip" (Haider is a close friend of Gaddafi's son). Anyway, the visit was not that private because Haider was accompanied not only by his henchmen Gerald Mikscha, but also by the bosses of two Carinthian banks and one industrialist. It's uncertain, if this alliance will help Haider to resolve the financial problems of Austria. Anyway, he could have received some good advice (or maybe more). When he returned he gave 2.5 million liters of gasoline to an owner of a Carinthean discount gas station and the generally critizised high petrol prices dropped. Very strange, isn´t it? May be it's easier to explain what they could have been discussing privately, since they have one important thing in common: both are not allowed to enter Israel... ************************************************ - 16 - Creative methods of money acquisition (2) ************************************************ The "Bundeswertpapieraufsicht" (Federal Surveillance of Deposites) demanded the suspension of the parliamentary privilege of the Second President of the Federal Parliament, T. Prinzhorn. He was the top candidate of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) at the last elections for the Austrian Federal Parliament. Due to an interview with Reuters, Prinzhorn is accused of systematically circulating false rumors about the sale of the brickwork "Wienerberger" and manipulating the stock market. ************************************************ - 17 - Creative methods of money acquisition (3) ************************************************ On Monday, 29th of May, the police of Linz (the capital of the federal state of Upper Austria) shot a bank robber in the usual way. The robber, armed with a fake pistol was hit by 7 of the 15 bullets. After the identification of the corpse, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe), well known for unorthodox methods of money acquisition (Rosenstingl!Prinzhorn!Haider!Meischberger!), was the topic of the day once again. The dead man was nobody minor than Alexander Jost, husband of the Styrian FPOe politician and the party´s hope for the future, Magda Jost-Bleckmann, who is well known for continous far right statements. Of course FPOe minister Schmid argued that everyone has to show humanity, in spite of political differences, because after all Mrs. Bleckmann was pregnant. It would be interesting how far humanity would go, if the dead had been the husband of a politician of the Social Democratic Party. Alexander Jost, heavily indebted, stated in his tax declaration, that he was financed by women - a creative tax trick and a slap in the face of his wife. She would have got rid of him anyway, because according to a friend he planned to flee to the Maledives. But thanks to the busy police of Linz, these activities were brought to an end. **************************************** - 18 - Bank robber survives official act **************************************** By the way, the police of Linz is so busy, that they nip even simulated bank robberies in the bud. During a shooting of the criminal TV-series "Tatort" a (real) policewoman stopped an actor with a weapon with released safety-catch. The actor, who was scared to death, immediately dropped his toy pistol... ******************************************* - 19 - The new government stimulates baking ******************************************* The chairman of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP), Andreas Khol, finally has something besides racism and sexism in common with the chairman of the Viennese Freedom Party (FPOe), Hilmar Kabas: a cake in his face. It was thrown at him during a cabaret show by a visitors thanking him for his policy. Poor cake. ******** EPILOGUE ******** If you don't want to receive this newsletter from us, please let us know. But please check before, if you really received the mail directly from us, otherwise you have to contact the nice people who have forwarded this newsletter ;-))))) Of course we prefer it the other way round so let us know, if you want to receive all our newsletters directly from us. CU NO PEACE WITH AUSTRIA!!! Rosa Antifa Vienna (RAW) -- #############RAW############# # Rosa Antifa Wien # # c/o Rosa Lila Tip # # Linke Wienzeile 102 # # A-1060 Wien # # AUSTRIA # # ------------------------- # # Tel.: +43 (1) 64 15 999 # # E-Mail: raw@swi.priv.at # #############RAW############# _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold