In view of the debate about Haider, I think the list should consider the facts and the arguments in the below.
It was forwarded to me by the National Civil Rights Movement (started last year in Britain as a result of a number of cases of police acquiescence in racism). It is from
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)
Web site: http://www.ncadc.demon.co.uk/
Quoting Amnesty International, Austria.
Chris Burford
London
The report covers incidents that happened before the current
government was sworn in. But human rights organisations fear that the
rise of the far right has given expression to passive racism in
Austria.
Rampant racism against Immigration detainees by Austrian police exposed
Black detainees kicked, beaten and punched, says Amnesty
Kate Connolly in Vienna: Saturday March 25, 2000
Austrian police have been accused of seriously flouting human
rights, abusing their powers and using brutal language and behaviour
in their treatment of foreigners, in a report released by Amnesty
International in Vienna yesterday.
The damning account said a strong inbuilt racism existed within
the police force.
The report was published on the same day as a 31-year-old police
officer appeared before a Vienna court charged with grevious bodily
harm over the beating of a young black African man.
The policeman is alleged to have hit the 18-year-old around the
genitals with a baseball bat before arresting him in
September last year on suspicion of drugs possession.
The Amnesty report said detainees were often denied access to
lawyers, doctors or friends, and foreigners, particularly black
Africans, had been beaten unconscious for not showing police their
papers.
The focal point of Amnesty's allegations is the case of Marcus
Omofuma, a Nigerian asylum seeker, 25, who died while being deported
from Vienna to Sofia in May last year. He was bound and gagged "like
a mummy stuck to the seat" by the three officers who accompanied him,
and arrived unconscious in Sofia where doctors pronounced him dead.
No charges were brought.
"Investigations into police ill-treatment have been slow, lacking
in thoroughness and often inconclusive," said Mr Patzelt. Often, when
complaints were made, the police brought counter-charges and more
often than not won.
Illegal raids on asylum homes were also being regularly reported,
he said, citing an incident which occurred after the report was
completed, in January this year, when police raided the home of black
Africans in Traiskirchen.
"One hundred and forty police stormed the home looking for drugs
but nothing was found," he said. "They then carried out painful anal
searches, simply because there was some suspicion that there might be
drugs there. All you need is a black face to be considered
suspicious."
In what is being seen as a timely move, the EU has chosen to base
its new racism monitoring centre in Vienna. "It wasn't placed here
because Austria is seen as being racist," insisted EU spokesman John
Kellock, "but if it steps out of line, we'll haul them over the
coals."
The Freedom party and People's party are the only government
parties in the EU not to have signed up to the EU's charter against
racism because their policies contravene some of the clauses.
Fears that intolerance is on the rise in Austria increased this
week when the head of the evangelical church, Bishop Gertraud Knoll,
said she was going into hiding with her three children because she
could no longer stand the violent and sexually abusive letters
delivered to her home in Burgenland.
Bishop Knoll, 41, has been a staunch critic of the Freedom party
and its racist politics for years.
Amnesty International Press Release 24 March 2000
In November 1998, Dr C, a black Austrian citizen, was stopped by
police after reversing his car into a one-way street and was asked
"Why are you driving the wrong way, Nigger?" The police
officers reportedly pushed Dr C into a bush of thorns, beat him
unconscious, handcuffed him and continued to beat him after he
regained consciousness. Dr C's wife claims one of the police
officers shouted to his colleague; "Make him lame until he can no
longer walk". After being arrested, Dr C was so badly beaten, he was
taken to hospital where he spent 11 days recovering.
Police officers entered a Chinese restaurant in July 1998 and
demanded identity papers from employees. The cook, a Chinese
national, was reportedly dragged out of the kitchen, beaten and put
into a headlock for not producing his papers.
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