Image: APA/HERBERT NEUBAUER
According to the report presented on Tuesday, there were 1,479 – after 1,977 in 2021. The proportion of people who were not witnesses but were affected themselves and who then turned to the initiative has increased. It is now 24 percent. The report was presented for the first time this year in the Vienna City Hall. An event on the International Day Against Racism also took place there today, as the responsible city councilor Christoph Wiederkehr (NEOS) explained. Vienna is committed to tolerance and inclusion, he emphasized. SPÖ municipal councilor Mireille Ngosso also underlined the importance of ZARA’s work. At the same time, she called for a national action plan against racism.
ZARA documented or processed a total of 1,479 reports in 2022. Anti-Muslim acts were recorded most frequently, with more than 300 incidents, followed by anti-Black racism. 999 of the reported cases involved discriminatory experiences online.
167 of “offline” experienced incidents were registered in public space, 134 in the area of services, 85 in state authorities or institutions. Reports from the world of work are not included. These will be forwarded to the Ombud for Equal Treatment or the Chamber of Labour.
ZARA managing director Barbara Liegl did not go into detail about the figures during the presentation. The data would often falsify the situation and say nothing about the core problem – such as structural racism – she assured. That’s why you put the focus on priorities. This year it’s about services. Because again and again there are racist incidents in shops, bars or even banks or means of transport.
List of demands presented
For example, Saska Dimic from the student body representing the Austrian Roma and Romnja described how prejudices manifest themselves again and again in everyday situations. Employees on trains, for example, would insult people as gypsies. A large proportion of these incidents, she pointed out, go unreported.
A catalog of demands was also presented today. For example, ZARA is in favor of comprehensive campaigns financed by the public sector. More precise statistics on complaints are also urged.
In his statement today, Wiederkehr also addressed the turquoise-blue pact in Lower Austria. There be one “exclusion coalition” been forged, he lamented. Vienna stands for the opposite. Pupils would be welcomed regardless of their origin, the deputy mayor assured. In February, the Lower Austrian FPÖ politician Gottfried Waldhäusl explained to schoolchildren in a TV discussion that Vienna would still be Vienna if many of them did not go to school in Vienna.
The previously good relationship between Vienna and the neighboring federal state thus seems to be deteriorating further. Only yesterday Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) expressed doubts that the good cooperation in the eastern region would continue as before.
Source: Nachrichten
