15-16 February 2011 A verdict has been passed in the case of the controversial “Islam Seminar” taught at the party academy of the right-way Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Judge Bettina Neubauer dismissed the charge of hate speech, however has fined the presenter of the seminar 480 Euros for denigrating and slandering Islam, due to…
9 February 2011 ATIB, the “Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Cooperation in Austria,” is a favorite target for anti-Islam activists in Austria. The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) maintains that the goal of ATIB is to spread Turkish values and the Qur’an in Austria, while local activists such as the spokesperson for the…
9 February 2011 A number of neighborhood anti-mosque initiatives in Vienna are coming together to create a new anti-Islam federation, the “Pro-Austria Movement” (BPÖ), also called the “Federation against Islamic Multipurpose Centers and the Islamicization of Austria.” The new federation brings together four separate citizens’ initiatives (Dammstraße, Trostgasse, Rappgasse, and the “Garten-Gallier”) which had been…
3 February 2010 The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has called on the chancellors of both Austria and Germany to prohibit the new Turkish film, “Valley of the Wolves: Palestine,” characterizing it an “immediate danger to Muslim-Jewish relations.” Originally a popular Turkish TV series which has since been made into a number of movies, this latest one…
31 October 2010 The rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe is discussed in this interview with the Austrian political scientist Reinhold Gärtner. In Gärtner’s opinion, Muslims and Islam have come to be the main scapegoats in many European countries, just as Jews or Roma have been in the past. The juxtaposition of criminality, immigration,…
