Video Threat After Austrian Politician’s Anti-Islam Comments

A video containing an unspecified threat to Austria was posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube on Tuesday following anti-Islamic remarks by a hitherto unknown far-right Austrian politician. Police said they were still evaluating the video, but had offered the Graz- based activist, Susanne Winter, personal protection after she denounced Islam’s prophet and Muslim men in general as “child molesters”. Winter had accepted the added protection following her remarks at the weekend, said a spokesman for the interior ministry, Rudolph Gollia. He said the government’s anti-terrorism office was “still in the process of evaluating” the video. Nevertheless, there appeared no reason to increase security in Austria for the time being, Gollia added. The video, lasting four minutes and 48 seconds, contained coverage of a speech Winter made at the traditional New Year’s congress of the populist far-right FPOe party on Sunday. Winter is the FPOe’s candidate for the upcoming municipal elections in the southern city of Graz. The video then showed pictures of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, and warned: “Look, Susanne, something like this could happen to your country and you are responsible.” “It was a mistake for you to take on … Allah’s warriors,” the video said in German. “We, the Muslims, are those warriors with whom you now have a problem.”

Share Button

Sources